PCSP News

Three ways to run a model you have picked out: buy a small box built for it, rent a big one by the hour, or build a node from decommissioned data-centre parts. The comparison is usually printed as a slogan, and the slogan is wrong in both directions. Both directions, from publi … read more

Two ways to put 64 GB of registered DDR4 into a workstation from our shelf, priced September 20, 2026: four 16 GB modules at $107.99 each, or two 32 GB at $215.99. The first comes to $431.96, the second to $431.98. Two cents apart — and on a six-channe … read more

Two Dell cards, one chip. The PERC H330 and the HBA330 are both LSI SAS3008, and Dell prints a queue depth for each in its own user guide: 895 for the PERC, 9,548 for the HBA. Same silicon, different firmware, a 10.7× gap — and those two numbers settle the most repe … read more

A 10 Gb port is not the expensive part of a 10 Gb network. On our own shelf, priced as of September 20, 2026, a 48-port gigabit switch with six 10 Gb SFP+ uplinks is $149.99 with 204 in stock, and six optics to light those uplinks are $6.31 each, $37.86 the … read more

Lenovo published a BIOS for the ThinkStation P620 on September 10, 2026, four days before this article was written; one for the P520 on June 4, one for the P720 and P920 on May 26. Those are 2017 and 2018 machines, and every one of those dates is newer than the n … read more

An SFP+ cage is one hole, and at least four incompatible things fit in it. The cheapest modules on the internet — the $2 ones, sold fifty to a lot — are overwhelmingly 8 Gb Fibre Channel, and nobody says so. On our own shelf, priced as of September 18, 202 … read more

The number stamped on a server power supply is not a property of the supply. It is a promise about the wall it is plugged into. Dell publishes the arithmetic by part number: in Dell KB 000198364 of January 30, 2025, a 2000 W supply delivers 1,000 W on a 90&n … read more