Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!vette!brooks
From: brooks@vette.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: *big iron*
Message-ID: <34298@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 28 Sep 89 03:39:29 GMT
References: <22488@cup.portal.com> <280001@hpdml93.HP.COM> <9911@venera.isi.edu>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: brooks@maddog.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 19

In article <9911@venera.isi.edu> rod@venera.isi.edu.UUCP (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) writes:
>
>What about Thinking Machines' Data Vault? I've been given to
>understand it's actually better than the machines themselves in some
>respects.
Thinking Machines' Data Vault is a fine example of the right way to
build an IO system these days.  Instead of using limited production
high performance drives, you build a highly parallel system using
the same mass production drives you can buy for workstations and throw
in a SECDED controller while you are at it.  The system has 72 drives
implementing a 64 bit wide data path with one bit per drive.  Using current
1.2 Gbyte drives each having a bandwidth of more than a megabyte per second
you could build a selfhealing disk system of more than 64 gigabytes and having
more than 64 megabytes a second throughput.  For one of the future
supercomputers built of 1000 microprocessors each having 8 to 32 mbytes of
memory you would need more than one of these disk systems to keep the thing fed.


brooks@maddog.llnl.gov, brooks@maddog.uucp