One of the greater advantages of using the newest version of MPE/iX is its support for more than 3.75 Gb of memory on HP 3000s. HP says lots of applications can benefit from more memory, and consultants report there’s no real limit on how much extra memory can help speed up processing. The more, the better. But customers are discovering that only the newer generations of e3000s can support memory limits of up to 16Gb, even though almost every HP 3000 can run the newest operating system. HP 3000s must be using the PA-8000 or PA-8200 processors to take advantage of the higher limits, putting popular systems such as the Series 959s outside the extra RAM capabilities. Systems that can go beyond the old memory limit are Series 929KS/030, 939KS/030, 979 and 989 and 989/050, which support up to 8 Gb. HP is requiring a Series 997 to support up to 16 Gb, the current limit for RAM under MPE/iX. Other 9x9 systems have real estate for customers to install memory boards, but the HP 3000 will not boot up with memory boards in place that take it beyond 3.75 Gb. HP made a note of the fact that the extra memory could be installed in its Communicator documentation for the 6.5 release, but did not specify which HP 3000s could actually boot with the extra memory. HP reports that ordering documents used by its own sales force and the authorized HP 3000 resellers do make note of which systems can boot up with memory beyond 3.75 Gb.

HP’s list of current systems which do not use the higher memory limits are the PA-7xxx processor based units, including the entire Series 9x7 and 9x8 lines, plus the 939KS, 929KS/020, 939KS/020, 959KS, 969KS/x00, 969KS/x20, 992/990, 995/991 and 996 servers. The 9x9KS systems which can go to 8 Gb with 6.5 can do so using 512 Mb memory modules, which HP says can be intermixed with the smaller 9x9KS memory modules. The rules for configuring up to 16 Gb on the 997 systems are to consider using one or two 8-Gb memory carrier cards. The carrier card can support from one to eight 1-Gb memory modules and can be field installed. The carrier card can be intermixed with the 128 Mb memory boards (which HP isn’t selling anymore, but can be obtained from third parties), as well as 256 Mb, 512 Mb and 768 Mb HP e3000 997 memory boards. Dave Snow, platform planning manager and keeper of many technical details about e3000 hardware, reports that “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.” HP is dropping the sale of its smaller-than-1-Gb 3000 memory cards for 997s as of August 1, so stock up if you need to buy HP memory.