Unit 6 – Computer System Implementation Fundamentals of Hardware

Exercises I
Create a document to answer the questions. At the beginning of the document write the title
of the exercises and below your name and surname. Try to upload the document in pdf
format.

1. About supercomputers:
a) What is a supercomputer?
b) In the following URL you can see the top 500 most powerful computers in the world.
What is the most powerful supercomputer according to the latest list (November
2022)? https://www.top500.org/
c) How many cores and RAM does it have?
d) Find out how many cores this processor model has and calculate the number of total
processors. Amazing, isn't it?
e) Have you noticed what operating system it uses? Most supercomputers use such an
operating system.

2. Think about in which cases you would use a thin client instead of a pc.

3. Point out the differences between PC, workstation, and server.

4. At these links you will find the technical specifications of a workstation and a server (both
Dell). According to the tech specs, how would we know if it's a workstation or a server? Look
at the type of processor, memory, external and internal ports, ...

 Workstation: https://www.dell.com/es-es/work/shop/sobremesas-y-estaciones-de-
trabajo/precision-tower-5820-construye-tu-propio-con-xeon/spd/precision-5820-
workstation/xctopt5820emea?ref=p13n_system_cat_mv&c=es&cs=esbsdt1&l=es&
s=bsd

 Server:https://www.dell.com/es-es/work/shop/povw/poweredge-
t350#techspecs_section

5. Choose a powerful server (www.dell.com, www.hpe.com, www.ibm.com...) and analyse its

features. What are the main differences you can find in terms of internal components or
connectors compared to a PC? Link the specifications of the server you have used to answer
the question.

6. About RAID:
a) When would we implement a system in RAID 0 and when in RAID 1?
b) What is parity used for in RAID 5?
c) If we have 4 disks of 2TB in RAID 5, how much space would be used to store data and
how much to store parity?
d) What are the advantages and disadvantages of RAID 0+1 over RAID 5?
Unit 6 – Computer System Implementation Fundamentals of Hardware

e) Find out what it means that, in a RAID system, one of the disks is a Hot Spare. Explain
its advantages and disadvantages.

7. Watch the following video about NAS and SAN storage and then answer the questions.
Watch the video with subtitles if you need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yZDDr0JKVc
According to the video:
a) What is a NAS device?
b) What is the main disadvantage of NAS?
c) Specify the definition that gives the video about SAN.
d) What are the advantages of using SAN instead of NAS?
e) What kind of elements are involved in a SAN and how are they connected to each
other?

In this interesting video in Spanish, you can see a complete review of a NAS server where
you can see the internal components of a server with these characteristics. I recommend
you watch it in full. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_aDrrz3xW8

In this video you can see physically a SAN/NAS system with all this connectors and
organization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eGw4vhyeTA I recommend you watch
it in full. (Subtitles in Spanish)

8. Search in an online computer stores(www.dell.com, www.synology.com,

www.pccomponentes.com, ..) for a NAS server with a tower format and another with a rack
format and compare their main features.

Features Tower format Rack format

Model
Price
Processor
RAM type
RAM size
Network connection
Unit 6 – Computer System Implementation Fundamentals of Hardware

Max. number of storage drives

Number and type of storage
drives interfaces
RAID compatibility?
Hot spare?
Hot swap?
URL

9. In the specifications of a rack server (storage or general) we can find that the chassis is 1U,
2U, ... What does it mean?

10. Search the Internet for what hot-swap devices are. What hot swap devices can we find in a
rack server?