today i got my new (well, less than a decade old) sun to replace my last dead ultra2: a netra 120 (aka sun fire v120). but what a noisy bugger!

it's nice, otherwise: 1U, space for 2 scsi-sca disks, LOM, 2 ethers onboard, space for 4gb in ECC PC133 DIMMs (= easy to get), one PCI socket, one 550MHz Ultra IIe thinker, no unnecessary crap (like graphics, keyboard, blinkenlights - it has only two leds, one steady and the other being the "oh no!" light, LOM-controllable). novel for a sun: it comes with two usb ports and all the guts (except for the LOM and sensors) is standard off-the-shelf stuff, meaning no problems with linux support. quite a nice case, too, not overly deep for a rackmount box.

but on the other hand it's a 1U box, meaning tiny fans: it has four 40mm/11krpm screamers (for which the data sheet says "41.5 dbA"). very unsubtle.

well, mine had four screamers; now it's three, one slower but still sufficient fan, with two more slow blowers in the mail.

very nice: i have usenet access back, and all the other magic functionality at home that depended on heffalump is back again. for once something worked pretty much on the first try.