SGI have announced the Origin 400 workgroup server – properly announced, this time round. Unlike last week’s accidental Origin 400 announcement, this is the real deal.

The Origin 400 looks like a solid bit of kit. Up to a total of 6 blades can be fitted, each one able to take two Intel Xeon quad- or six-core 5500 or the just announced 5600 series. 96gb of RAM per blade for a total of 576GB in the chassis, and space for up to 14 2.5″ SAS drives. The spec sheet also says it supports up to two ‘redundant Ethernet switch modules’, each with 10 gigabit ethernet ports – each blade is specced with 2 GigE ports, so I’m wondering if these ‘switch modules’ are for exporting the storage as NAS.

The specs on each CPU blade sound suspiciously like those in the Octane III – are they interchangeable?

You can view the full press release here and the Origin 400 product pages here.