The best product Sun has ever sold!
Written: Aug 17 '01 (Updated May 09 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: CHEAP! Great price/performance, USB keyboard/mouse
Cons: Proprietary graphics card, anecdotal evidence of high DOA rates, KVM switch incompatibility
The Bottom Line: I've you've ever wanted your very own Sun workstation for very little money, now's your chance!
|
|
|
| clouseau2's Full Review: Sun Microsystems Blade 100 (A36UQE1Z9A-D512DF) PC ... |
I've been using computers on and off for the last 22 years, and I've been using Suns before the company even started shipping their first products. I've used Sun 3/50s in college, Sparc 1,2,5 and 10s while I worked at Sun for 2.5 years, and later on I progressed from a Sparc-20 to an Ultra-1 to my current Ultra-60 at work.
And all that time, my big dream was to own my very own Sun workstation at home. And now, with the Sun blade 100, that dream has finally come true! Sure, I could have splurged and bought a $5000 workstation earlier, but I could never convince myself that that was really the best use of my money. Since the Sun Blade 100 sells for only $995 if you order online, I bought one immediately after I discovered that it was available.
I ordered my Sun Blade 100 with 128 Mb of RAM, and ordered 512 Mb of PC133 ECC Crucial memory for only $200 (prices are much lower now) so that now I have 640 Mb total of RAM. I also ordered Sun Silver support and a media kit which contains CDs for Solaris 2.8 and some freeware.
Let's talk about why this is the best Sun product ever made.
If you are a hard-core UNIX geek like myself, you really like using Sun workstations, but the fact that Sun workstations usually required proprietary keyboards, connectors, monitors, memory, etc., meant that upgrades were expensive and the equipment was not compatible with PC equipment. What people like myself really want is a low-cost PC with a Sparc chip in it. The Sun blade 100 is 95% there.
It uses USB for plugging in the keyboard and mouse. I prefer the Sun arrangement of keys (where the ~ is, the Esc key, and the Caps lock/Control keys) and PC keyboards drive me nuts. I've always wanted a Sun style keyboard for my PCs and now I have one. I got rid of my standard PC keyboard and use the Sun keyboard for my PCs as well through a KVM switchbox.
Speaking of KVM switches, I bought the IOGear Omniview USB KVM switches. I read up on this on www.deja.com, and I came to the conclusion that this is the only model that worked properly with the Sun blade 100. I also bought the IOGear Omniview II because that KVM switch has some neat features, but that KVM switch does NOT work with the Sun blade 100.
Let me explain the difference between the two KVM switches. I have 2 PCs and the Sun blade 100 hooked up to my USB Sun keyboard, USB Logitech mouse, and NEC 18" flatpanel. The IOGear Omniview switchbox is a "dumb" KVM switch. This means that when you select a computer, it just switches over the USB ports to the next computer. To the computer that has just been switched out, you have just disconnected the USB devices from the PC. Why is this an issue? Let's say you want to boot up 2 PCs at the same time. You can't do this now, because whatever PC isn't selected on the KVM switch will think there is no keyboard and mouse, complain, and you'll have to reboot. Also, there is a 2-3 second delay between switching PCs because when you select a PC on the KVM switch it's like plugging the USB devices back in.
Update: PCs with Windows 2000 will boot fine with the KVM switch switched to a different PC, so this problem is less severe now.
Now the Omniview II is a "smart" KVM switch. This means that when you switch from one PC to another on the KVM switch, the switch actually fakes still being plugged into the computer you have just switched out of. This means that there is no delay between switching from PC to PC, because each PC thinks there is a keyboard and mouse plugged in at all times, even if it's not selected. This means you can boot PCs without having the KVM switch selected to that PC. Very nice.
Unfortunately, the Sun blade 100 doesn't recognize the OmniView II. It's a pity, but not the end of the world.
Another great strength of the Sun blade 100 is how incredibly QUIET the Sun blade 100 is. Most PCs are very noisy and the Sun blade 100 is WHISPER quiet! I usually can't hear it at all unless there is disk activity. The CPU doesn't even have a fan on it (just a heatsink). This makes working on the computer very pleasant.
Update: Yes, it is whisper quiet initially. However, it must have a temperature activated cooling system, because after a while it does become noisy. It took me a while to notice because I usually have my PC turned on at the same time which is much louder so it masks the sound of the Sun blade 100. However, the Sun blade 100 is still a very quiet computer, although the hard drive crunches rather loudly during drive activity (I actually kind of like that sound myself...).
The base graphics card is just a plain jane ATI rage 2D card with almost no 3D abilities. You can run OpenGL apps but very S-L-O-W-L-Y... If you want a 3D card the price of the machine doubles, which is ridiculous. Sun should forget about selling graphics cards, add an AGP port and get nVidia to port their GeForce drivers to Solaris. That would make this machine a nice and cheap graphics workstation.
The Sun blade 100 has 3 PCI slots, a CD-ROM drive, a floppy drive, and a smart card reader.
Looking into the performance of the system, it can't touch an Ultra-60 but is more than sufficient for java development, compiling stuff, light server duty, etc. You have to remember that it only costs $995.
I've heard anecdotal evidence that there is a high rate of return on these systems due to cheap manufacturing. I've had no problems at all so far, other than a bizarre problem if I run the application "mailtool" remotely through SSH. The machine will freeze up if I do that. Everything else has been rock solid and stable. I haven't applied the recommended 2.8 patches yet so maybe that problem would go away if I did that.
I recommend getting the media kit, so you can reinstall Solaris 2.8 if you need to. I reinstalled because I didn't like the default OS configuration (Solaris 2.8 comes preinstalled on the machine). Also, you get a freeware CD full of compilers, games, etc., that is very handy because you can install the whole CD and you won't have to download, compile and install gcc, GNUmake, etc.
There are two firewire ports on the back which I haven't used yet.
Overall, using this machine has been extremely pleasant. Because of its compact dimensions (about an inch deeper than my LaserDisc player, and the same width) I actually have it sitting on the bottom of my stack of stereo equipment, so it really doesn't take up any space at all. It's quiet, fast and you can use your favorite USB keyboard and mouse with it (just make sure you get the proper KVM switch if you use one). I love the keyboard, I'm surprised Sun doesn't sell just the keyboard as a generic component, so that UNIX users could buy them for the PCs they use (I own a "happy hacking" keyboard at work for just this purpose). I don't like the Type 6 keyboard as much as my Type 5 at work, but it's much better than the average PC keyboard.
The only way Sun could improve this is by supporting more USB KVM switches and supporting AGP graphics cards (Like the GeForce line). These are pretty minor complaints about a great product!
If you've always wanted your own Sun workstation, now is your chance. Sure you could put FreeBSD or Linux on a PC and use that (that's what I did before this system), but if you've been using Solaris for years on end like I have, there's no substitute for the real thing.
A great product from a great company!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
Operating System: Unix
Processor: Other
Processor speed: 401-500
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
clouseau2
|
|
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.