Part III: Zeus rebuilt and configured!

I’ve spent the last month working with the newly built zeus server which is now powered by OpenSolaris (2009.06).

Here’s my final hardware specifications:

I’ve finally managed to get the GA-MA790X-UD4P on the OpenSolaris HCL list – woo! Unfortunately the onboard NIC will not work in the 2009.06 release even though it is detected:

Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller

Maybe in a future release. Make sure you update the BIOS as OpenSolaris may have an issue with the USB controller being ‘mis-configured’ otherwise.

Just for kicks I went to Jaycar and bought myself a power usage meter to measure the watts used by the new boxen (see a review of the Mains Power Meter on DansData).

Old Zeus

  • Idle: 380W
  • Load: 413W

New Zeus

  • Idle: 232W
  • Load: 270W

Nice, with an Intel Atom based server it could go _a lot_ lower, but I’m happy with this.

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