Longmont, Colorado-based Solbourne Computer Inc has wasted no time in following up its announcements of late last month (CI No 1,727) with two further additions to its line of multiprocessing Sparc servers and an innovation in the Sparc world. The Series 700 Deskside Departmental Server is a mid-range server in a rack-mounted system, and there is a new Multi-Channel Accelerator Board claimed to be the first multi-channel input-output architecture available in the Sparc market and to enhance the input-output capabilities of Solbourne’s multiprocessors. It says SCSI drives are vital for database applications, while IPI drives are well-suited for design automation and the Series 700 can accommodate up to 10 internal SCSI drives, up to four internal IPI drives, or a combination; overall the Series 700 can take up to 32 IPI disks. It comes in two base systems – the 33MHz 5/700 and the 40MHz 5E/700, each with one to four processors and 16Mb, 32Mb or 128Mb memory modules for a maximum of 256Mb in the 5/700, 640Mb in the 5E/700; the slower one is pitched as a file and network server, the 5E/700 as a compute server. The seven Kbus system slots accommodate either memory or processors and there is one VME slot. The 5/701-16 is rated at 18 SPECmarks, and 27 MIPS with one CPU, 101 MIPS with four. The 5E/702-16 is rated at 31 MIPS to 114 MIPS, and 22.4 SPECmarks. Prices start at $21,900 for a 16Mb single processor 33MHz model, $28,900 for the 40MHz version. The Multi-Channel Accelerator Board for 5E/900s and the new 700s supports on a single board a 25M-byte-per-second VMEbus, Ethernet interface, and a 5M-byte-per-second SCSI port. It also enables Solbourne’s Kbus computers to link with more than one network at a time, and it sells for $5,900.
