Daily Tech News 10 March 2023

• Need a workstation with 120 cores, four high-end Nvidia graphics cards, 2TB of RAM, and 28TB of SSD, but you also want it to look cool? Lenovo has you covered. (AnandTech)
  
  As long as someone else is paying, because that configuration will cost over $100k.
  
  They do have smaller, cheaper models, but none of them are actually small or cheap.

• If you want to build a small, cheap workstation/server - for example in a discontinued Silverstone case that arrived at your door yesterday - here are a couple of tips.
  
  Gigabyte's B650I is a solid motherboard with three M.2 slots, four SATA ports, and 2.5Gb Ethernet. It can drive three displays over DisplayPort, HDMI, and USB-C (one of each).
  
  That's an AMD motherboard, but AMD CPUs use less power than Intel, even when they have the same 65W power rating. The 7900 for example peaks at 89W, and is 50% faster than the 13500 which peaks at 151W. Not a drama in a desktop system but these cases are quite small and will be packed full of drives, so I want something relatively low power.
  
  Silverstone, the same company that made the case, also makes an M.2 SATA controller. The case can hold eight drives, and the motherboard only has four SATA ports, so this is handy. There are other models, but this one comes with a chunky heatsink, which is apparently a necessity if you want these little controllers to work consistently.
  
  And if you want something faster than the built-in 2.5Gb Ethernet, since the PCIe slot is still free you can add a dual 25Gb Ethernet card for about $80. Which is crazy overkill for a small server like this but the price can't be beat. 25Gb switches aren't cheap but it will work fine with 10Gb SFP+ switches or RJ45 transceivers. (25Gb Ethernet uses SFP28, which is not the same as SFP+, but is backwards compatible.)
  
  
  
• The Solidigm P44 Pro seems like a decent SSD if you can find one for a decent price. (Hot Hardware)
  
  Who the hell is Solidigm? Well, a while ago Intel sold its consumer SSD division to Korean group SK Hynix. This is them.
  
  Also, Nextorage is Sony. Why they don't just call it Sony I don't know.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 03:59 AM

| Access Comments