True story: a friend a datamining company replaced their cluster with a single machine loaded with RAM. Result: ~100-1000x speed up over their cluster and for

True story: a friend a datamining company replaced their cluster with a single machine loaded with RAM. Result: ~100-1000x speed up over their cluster and for less money $. Lesson: Look at real numbers and choose your architecture to suit your specific problem. Don't underestimate the speed of RAM.