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Where can I purchase a single server capable of 512 GB, yes GB, of RAM?

The most I've seen is 256 GB (32 DIMM x 8 GB per stick)

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    I'm curious, what is the use case for this? I imagine it's for an in-memory database? Have you considered SSD drives instead? – w00t Jun 25 '09 at 07:36
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    Sometimes you just want a really big program .. I work in chip design software and we have a 128Gb machine. – pjc50 Oct 27 '09 at 12:41
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    Yes, there are computational and simulation apps that eat RAM for breakfast. We've got a Dell 910 with 1TB of RAM! – Tatas Sep 19 '11 at 15:36
  • If that was less of an exciting bit of kit, I expect this question would have been closed by now as a "shopping list" question with an associated thread in meta... – dunxd Sep 19 '11 at 15:45
  • @w00t: Virtualization. – StrangeWill Nov 14 '11 at 17:16
  • Basecamp Next has a server with 864GB RAM http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3090-basecamp-nexts-caching-hardware – mixdev Jan 29 '12 at 00:56
  • has visions of custom caching layers dancing in his head -> –  Aug 31 '13 at 15:59
  • @TimK, What's your budget? With enough money you can even get 10x that amount. – Pacerier Aug 26 '14 at 22:11

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The HP DL700 series of servers support a maximum of 512GB of memory. The DL785 G6 which is being released in September will also support AMD's new 6 core processors.

Edit: I made the assumption you wanted x86 architecture here. But, since someone already mentioned Itanium I think I'll throw in a link to SGI Altix. Their Altix 450 "mid-range" server can go up to 854 GB and 76 cores. The Altix 4700 goes to 1024 cores and 128 TB of memory. That's not a cluster, but one shared memory system :) Of course at that point you're looking at several rows of racks of gear for this one "server".

Kamil Kisiel
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    seconded, they're a great machine and offer some unique memory-protection options - if you're going to buy a server for such a lot of memory it makes sense to get a decent machine. Now just wait until the 780 G6 ;) – Chopper3 Jun 25 '09 at 06:01
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    DL785 - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001279.html – Dan Carley Jun 25 '09 at 09:23
  • @DanCarley, Do you mean this: http://blog.codinghorror.com/scaling-up-vs-scaling-out-hidden-costs/ ? – Pacerier Aug 26 '14 at 22:19
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Sun makes some really solid hardware. This one can go up to 512GB of RAM:

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/index.xml

They also have a couple of SPARCS that can do 1TB of RAM:

http://www.sun.com/servers/finder/index.xml?cat=all&c7eefa02-3698-11de-857b-080020a9ed93=min257.0max8192.0

jedberg
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A good option from IBM is the x3950 enterprise servers. They are System X (x86 / x86_64) servers and you can put up to 256GB (and 4 processors) into one node.

But you can also partition them together and have 4 x3950s acting as a single system, giving you 1TB of memory, 16 CPUs (Mmmm... hex cores gives you 96 cores total).

(disclosure: My company is an IBM business partner and we sell these systems)

MikeyB
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You may also consider HP Integrity high-end servers, as well as a mid-range rx8640. Based on Itanium archtecture.

Taras Chuhay
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HP DL 5 now is touting 2TB of RAM DL580 G7 Starting price $8400 US dollars 4 procs http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF04a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-3328422.html

$7700 for G7 AMD 1TB memory

sal
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Sun has released the x4640 (the successor to the x4600 mentioned by jedberg earlier) and it supports 512G of memory (64 DIMM slots * 8GB/DIM) and has 8 sockets (up to 48 cores). It is also only 4RU, so fairly compact for an 8-socket machine. I have used the x4600s on a few gigs and they have been great to work with.

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4640/specs.xml

Bill Hathaway
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We just ordered a 512GB machine with 40 cores, a Dell R910 (28K Euro). Yes, we also need this for de novo assemblies of genomes. In our case, plant genomes. We didn't buy a 1TB machine, as that would have cost excessive amounts of money.

Jan van Haarst
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Call IBM up, I'm sure they'd be glad to sell you a mainframe with 512 gigs of memory. You won't be able to run windows on it, but you can run either Linux or Z/OS. It will cost you a lot but you are paying for the reliability & service contract as well as the RAM.

voretaq7
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Jared
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  • We have several of those 512MB servers running. As someone here already mentioned IBM sells 3950s that can do that. – pfo Apr 01 '11 at 15:32
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    @pfo: 512MB servers? - seems like a far cry from a fair comparison. I bet that is just a typo.. – Patrick R Apr 01 '11 at 16:40
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If you have deep pockets don't mind what CPU architecture you use you can get IBM Power 595 machines with up to 4TB of RAM. I'm assuming that you want a wintel or lintel server.

For a wintel architecture with support for memory configurations of 512GB or more you can get 8 socket machines from Sun, HP and Unisys. Unisys also makes a 16 socket Xeon based system that takes up to 1TB of RAM. Some machines that support this type of configuration are:

One of the other posters mentioned an IBM system that goes up to this spec as well.

ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
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We’ve burned one of the ProLiant DL785 G6 servers and what a powerhouse mainframe in a rackable enclosure. With the older DL760 retired, it’s good to see the monster ProLiant server is back.
http://www.shopricom.com