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Coolest Cluster Ever
sw155kn1f3 writes "Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory built a cheap (less than $1k per unit) 294-unit Beowulf claster dedicated to run astrophysics calculations. According to their website it's 85th fastest computer in the world. Seems cool and promising as it made with cheap components and off the shelf hardware."
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from the article:
Each node consists of a 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1 Gb of 333 MHz DDR SDRAM, an 80 Gbyte Maxtor hard drive
The normal P4 cpu was not meant for long computational work, it was meant for desktop mulimedia use. If you want cpu that can handle brutal computation work over a long period it would be wiser to use a cluster of Suns or low powered transmeta processors (create much less heat than bulky p4's! I'm sure that lab is hotter than an african rainforest)
333mhz ddr ram is sub-par. 333mhz ram is still relatively untested, 266mhz ddr would have been a wiser choice. Servers need reliable ram with error-checking, eg. rambus rdram. 333mhz ddr might be good for quake playing overclockers, but it is not what you want in a cluster.
Maxtor is one of the worst hard drive vendors out there. It would have been wiser to use more reliable drives for cluster work such as seagates or ibm's. I have had the displeasure of using maxtor drives and they never lasted more than a few months.
With all these factors in play, I would be surprised if this thing ran for more than a couple of months before totally breaking down.
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Yet another victory for Linux! 85th place on top500 list! Wow!
It already is a Beowulf cluster. That joke is about as funny as HIV.
At least you had the decency of posting anonymously.
Imagine. if this was a single processor and they made a Beawulf cluster of them...
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