Cray Research T3E-900

Cray Research T3E-900

This 1997 Cray Research model T3E-900 was donated by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. This system was used at Lincoln to evaluate a potential upgrade to the computers that process radar returns on Aegis Combat System equipped US Navy ships. Components of this system were evaluated on a testbed simulating a ship during combat operations. Processing elements in this system continued to operate even during a simulated torpedo strike! While the study concluded that the system met all of the requirements, it was just too big and power hungry for a shipboard environment.

Cray T3Es use DEC 21164 Alpha CPUs and were available with several different processor clock speeds. They were also available in both air and liquid models. The air cooled systems have a maximum of 128 CPUs and the liquid cooled systems have a maximum of 2048 CPUs

The two cabinets on the right with the red on the door contain 1 Clock Module and 9 PEMS for a total of 36 21164 DEC Alpha processors. The processor cabinets are connected to the I/O cabinets with a GigaRing.

The two PC-10B cabinets on the left contain 2 FCNs (Fibre Channel Nodes), 1 DSS-1 SCSI disk array with 4 drives, 4 DFS-1 Fibre Channel disk arrays with 40 drives, and the MPN (Multipurpose I/O Node).

There is an article in the Spring 1994 issue of the Digital Technical Journal on the design of the T3D, the predecessor of the T3E.

These are some of the AC power connectors used to feed the Cray.