Tatung Science & Technology's compact rackmount system is targeted towards ISPs. It has a maximum capacity of 8 GB of memory and 216 GB of internal disk storage.

by Wayne Kawamoto [April 30, 2001]

Tatung Science & Technology (TSTI) announced the COMPstation U280R/2750, a new compact rack-mountable server based on Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC III processors and its latest generation 64-bit, SPARC v9 architecture.

According to the company, its new low-profile server offers a wide range of expansion options in a compact 4U enclosure, with the ability to add up to two UltraSPARC III processors with 8MB L2-cache; up to 8GB of memory; and a variety of 5-1/4" tape or CD-ROM and 3-1/2" FC-AL disk drives.

Tatung designed the system to easily and cost effectively accommodate memory and peripherals expansion. Expansion options include one PCI slot, 32/64-bit, at 33 or 66 MHz and three PCI slots, 32/64-bit at 33 MHz.

The system provides two 5-1/4" drive slots for CD-ROM or tape drives, and three 3-1/4" FC-AL disk drive slots. It is expandable from 18 GB to 216 GB of internal disk storage; and can accommodate 128 MB, 256 MB or 1 GB of system memory per DIMM, for a maximum capacity of 8 GB.

Also included are two serial ports, one Centronics-compatible parallel port, optional 16-bit audio, an HSSDC copper FC-AL connector, Solaris 8 and a 10/100-BaseT Ethernet interface. The system also comes with a 2+1 redundant power supply.

The COMPstation U280R/2750 supports three accessible drive bays, which should allow FC-AL hard drives to be easily swapped from the front panel without opening or removing the system from the rack. This feature may facilitate easy upgrades, routine maintenance, and service.

With a fast system bus interconnect speed of 4.8 GB/second, 8MB L-2 cache per processor and 8GB of memory bundled with the robust Solaris 8 operating system, the COMPstation U280R/2750 is designed for e-commerce and other Web-based applications. According to Tatung, it will perform equally well as an Internet gateway server or a demanding application server.

"The COMPstation U280R/2750 is a very powerful and flexible system that can be used in a variety of high end applications," said Dr. Kam Chan, president of TSTI. "Because the system is highly scalable, it is equally effective as an enterprise-class server, in e-commerce applications for Internet Service Providers and for design-station applications in small to medium-size workgroups."

Availability and pricing
Suggested list pricing starts at $19,800 for a standard configuration of dual 750MHz processors, 1GB of memory, and 36GB of FC-AL disk drives.

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