HP 9000/E-Class
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1994-1995 |
| CPU | 1 PA-7100LC 48-96 MHz |
| Caches | 64 KB-1 MB L1 |
| RAM | 512 MB |
| Design | LASI |
| Drives | 5 SCSI |
| Expansion | 2 HP-PB |
| Bandwidth | System 128 MB/s I/O 32 MB/s |
| I/O | 10E SCSI MUX parallel |
Overview
The E-Class Wright Brothers
are low-cost PA-RISC servers from the mid-1990s and
replacements for the older F and G-Class Nova servers.
Designed for reduced manufacturing cost they were developed
in parallel to the HP 9000/712 workstations.
The case was taken over almost unchanged from the F-Class, with the CPU/memory and part of the I/O systems being new
designs.
From the integrated LASI chipset only
the networking and several other functions were used — due to time constraints a modified version
of the F-Class HP-PB Personality boards
was used for SCSI, serial MUX and parallel.
Model numbers, introductions dates and prices:
| System | Model number | Introduced | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| E25 | HP 9000/806 | 1994 | $6,000 |
| E35 | HP 9000/816 | 1994 | |
| E45 | HP 9000/826 | 1994 | $11,320 |
| E55 | HP 9000/856 | 1995? |
Internals
CPU
- E25: PA-7100LC 48 MHz with 1 KB on-chip L1 and 64 KB off-chip L1 cache
- E35: PA-7100LC 64 MHz with 1 KB on-chip L1 and 256 KB off-chip L1 cache
- E45: PA-7100LC 80 MHz with 1 KB on-chip L1 and 256 KB off-chip L1 cache
- E55: PA-7100LC 96 MHz with 1 KB on-chip L1 and 1024 KB off-chip L1 cache
Chipset
- LASI as central I/O chipset
- Wax EISA bridge
- HP-PB bus converter, 8 MHz HP-PB frequency
- HP ASICs for HP-PB, SCSI and MUX port
Buses
- GSC system level I/O bus
- HP-PB additional I/O bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended bus; main storage I/O
Memory
- 72-pin ECC SIMMs, 8-64 MB modules
- Eight slots
- 16 MB minimum, 512 MB maximum
Expansion
- Two slots for HP-PB cards
Drives
- One tray for two 3.5″ Fast-Narrow SE 50-pin SCSI hard drives
- One tray for three half-height 5.25″ Fast-Narrow SE 50-pin drives, externally accessible
External connectors
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- high-pin-count MUX connector
- Ethernet RJ45
- Ethernet AUI 15-pin
- Parallel DB25
References
- Development of a Low-Cost, High-Performance, Multiuser Business Server System (PDF, HP Journal 4/95)
- HP 9000 E-Class Servers Product Brief (.pdf) Hewlett-Packard Company (1993: Hewlett-Packard)
Pictures
- E35: complete, CPU, CPU rear, I/O board, rear (pictures © Copyright ESIEE; with permission)
- E55: front, rear, CPU top, CPU bottom, I/O top, I/O bottom, backplane, PSU rear, chassis front, chassis rear (pictures © Copyright Ralf Folkerts; with permission)
Operating systems
- HP-UX 10.20 for 800s servers, HP-UX 11.00 and HP-UX 11i v1 (unsupported)
- Linux: very limited hardware support (no SCSI and other)
- NetBSD: very limited hardware support (no SCSI, only serial and other)
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC92, int | SPEC92, fp |
|---|---|---|
| E25 | 45.0 | 66.7 |
| E35 | 65.6 | 98.5 |
| E45 | 82.1 | 122.9 |
| E55 | 108.0 | 163.4 |