Bruno Delbono wrote: > Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote: >> There _are_ systems with hot-swap CPUs, memory and/or, PCI[-X] slots. >> They are _not_ commodity and pricey, and require OS-level support. > > > Sun EXX00 + series running UltraSparc II and above have pretty much hot > swapable everything: cpu, memory, disks etc. > > And they are cheap on ebay these days (8-24 way 400 Mhz US-II (64-bit), > with anywhere from 2-14 GB memory and FC-AL IO etc. EX500). I'm really sorry to start this thread again but I found something very interesting I thought everyone should ^at least^ have a look at: http://uadmin.blogspot.com/2005/06/4-dual-xeon-vs-e4500.html This article takes into account a comparision of 4 dual xeon vs. e4500. The author (not me!) talks about "A Shootout Between Sun E4500 and a Linux Redhat3.0 AS Cluster Using Oracle10g [the cluster walks away limping]" Warm Regards, -Bruno