Most of us are familiar with Tandberg RDX drives for backup purposes.  RDX is directly attached to a server or PC with either an internal SATA or external USB interface. The USB edition is more popular as it is portable and allows the RDX drive to be used on various servers in various locations. 

Tandberg has released a new product called AccuVault which is an appliance inclusive of RDX drives and software.  The appliance is network attached and can support all servers on the same network without being manually moved around.  The cheapest edition has a pedestal form factor with one RDX drive.  (Note: please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to loan a sample for your own familiarisation for a few days free of rent). The more expensive edition is 1U with 4 HDD. 

Another expensive edition is 2U 8 HDD and Tandberg has called it QuikStation for its ability to be used as iSCSI storage if wanted. As appliances, they are pre-installed with software which is capable of de-duplication to achieve a compression ratio of 20.  These appliances are meant for back up and recovery use instead of real time data storage.  RDX media are portable and can be taken to a different geographic location for total peace of mind.  
URL for public product spec http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/category/12/58/259/
and reseller pricing info: http://www.compucon.co.nz/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,185/

Diamond Plus is the enhanced edition of process computers based on Intel technology.  It was first created mid last year in response to Intel introducing a new computing platform that sat between value systems (Diamond) and performance systems (Superhawk).  This new platform has integrated graphics and falls into the Diamond category.  We have conveniently called it Diamond Plus.  This situation is similar to Superhawk and Superhawk Plus for two renditions of performance platforms without integrated graphics. 

Why do we need two renditions of each platform?  The reasons are in performance, price, and architecture differences. 

Diamond is based on G41 chipset of Penryn descent with 775pin.  Diamond Plus was based on H55 of Westmere descent with 1156pin.  Intel changed its mind recently when releasing Sandy Bridge to succeed Westmere with 1155pin.  This is our latest Diamond Plus.  Intel further introduced more fragmentation of this platform with 2 chipsets- H61 & H67.  Whilst we have adopted H61 for Diamond Plus, should we bother to add another rendition called Diamond Plus Square?  This is a balancing act between fitness for purpose (fragmentation) and total cost of ownership (consistency).  We have identified the sweet spot and managed the spread and transition of system platforms well.  See this for the new Diamond Plus based on Sandy Bridge.       www.compucon.co.nz/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,245/

The supply of motherboards with a good chipset for supporting Intel Sandy Bridge processors has resumed.  Superhawk will land on this Bridge starting from 21 March 2011. 

Depending on our stock holding, we may have Superhawk 1156 and Superhawk 1155 offerings in parallel for a brief period.  The numbers refer to CPU pins- 1155 is Sandy Bridge and 1156 is Westmere.  The new model is about $60 more expensive than the old model and this is a reflection of more performance.   Do not compare the CPU frequency (GHz) or amount of L3 Cache if they have different pins.  Sandy Bridge has a better utilisation of processor resources than Westmere.  The top performer is still 1366 for Superhawk Plus (Nehalem) and the value segment is still 775 for Diamond (Penryn).  Find info on Sandy Bridge here: http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/view/874/57/

Diamond Plus on 1156 is the next system model to change to 1155.  It has integrated graphics whereas Superhawk has discrete graphics.  The evolution will take place as soon as the new chipset and motherboard are available.

Workgroup Server is also based on 1156 pin processors for single socket.  We estimate its evolution to take place in mid April timeframe. 

We have continued to do more benchmarking of Quadro cards since the last CPD disclosure and have continued to discover more open secrets.  Quadro Fermi is indeed a new technology that is not well understood by many people.  We will take a bit more time to organize our findings and to continue this discovery journey.  There is however some information that is stable for release.  For this purpose, we have created a new home page for Engineering Workstations on our public website:  http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/view/794/253/.

The information there is incomplete for now and more will progressively be posted.  We plan to release pricing info in April and will talk about the discoveries in the April CPD Seminar.

A major discovery is that not all CAD application packages are tuned for Quadro Fermi or CUDA 2.  Once we have installed the latest drivers, application performance goes up to 300%.  This discovery applies to the most popular CAD software in the world. Do the big boys know how fast the world is changing?   GeForce may have the same CUDA cores as Quadro, but the lack of tuned Fermi application drivers is a major deterrence to its use for professional applications.