Communicator e3000 MPE/iX Release 7.0 Express 1 (Software Release C.70.01) (30216-90328)

128 Chapter6
Technical Articles
MPE/iX Release 6.5 Supports >3.75 GBs of Memory
MPE/iX Release 6.5 Supports >3.75 GBs of Memory
Dave Snow,
Hewlett-Packard
With the March 2000 shipment of MPE/iX Release 6.5 and all subsequent releases, HP
e3000 Servers now support greater than 3.75 GBs of main memory. This is good news for
many applications for which memory sizes limited the number of users that could be
supported or for which had the application's performance was limited by the 3.75 GB
maximum memory size. However, since the MPE/iX Release 6.5 Communicator only
indicates that "some" HP e3000 Servers will benefit form this increase, clarifications need
to be given as to which HP e3000 Servers will actually benefit from this maximum memory
size increase.
HP e3000 Ordering Menus for adding HP e3000 memory used by HP sales people and by
HP e3000 Authorized Resellers already note these limitations.
With MPE/iX Release 7.0 Express 1, A500 Servers can use up to 8 GBs of main memory
and N4000 Servers can use up to 16 GBs of main memory.
For HP e3000 servers prior to the A- and N-Class, only HP e3000 Servers that use the
PA8000 or PA8200 processor chips (the PA-RISC 64 bit chips) with MPE/iX Release 6.5
will be able to use memory sizes greater than 3.75 GBs. This includes a number of 9x9KS
Servers (the 929KS/030, 939KS/030, 979KS, 989KS/x00 and 989KS/x50 Servers) and the
997 Servers.
A number of HP e3000 Servers based on PA7xxx processor chips (the PA-RISC 32 bit
chips) can still use Release 6.5 and many of its added new features (e.g. WebServer
software, file sizes up to 128 GBs, up to 511 disk spindles, etc.). However these PA7xxx
processor based servers will not be able to support memory sizes greater than 3.75 GBs.
These include the 9x7, 9x8, 939KS, 929KS/020, 939KS/020, 959KS, 969KS/x00,
969KS/x20, 992/990, 995/991 and 996 Servers.
For those HP e3000 9x9KS Servers that do support greater than 3.75 GB of memory, the
upper limit is now 8 GB with MPE/iX Release 6.5 and subsequent releases. To achieve
these large memory sizes, customers should consider using the 9x9KS 512 MB memory
modules, which can be intermixed with the smaller 9x9KS memory modules.
For the HP e3000 997 Servers, the upper limit is now 16 GB with MPE/iX Release 6.5 and
subsequent releases. To achieve these large memory sizes, customers should consider
using one or two 8 GB memory carrier cards. This 8 GB memory carrier card can support
from one to eight 1 GB memory modules. The 8 GB memory carrier card can be
field-installed and can be intermixed with the 128 MB (not actively sold), 256 MB, 512 MB
and 768 MB HP e3000 997 memory array boards. However, since there are a limited
number of slots for plugging memory into the 997 Server, some smaller memory array
cards may need to be removed to support large processor and large memory configurations.
Previous communications (e.g. the Spring 2000 HP e3000 Advisor) to 99x end-users have
noted that sales of some 99x memory products (the 256 MB, 512 MB and 768 MB memory
arrays) would be discontinued as of August 1, 2000. HP e3000 997 customers using
MPE/iX Release 6.0 Express 1, Release 6.5 or subsequent releases can continue to
purchase the 8 GB memory carrier board and associated 1 GB memory module (although