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Clusters at Home?
dallastgi asks: "Sitting at my desk (a bargain second hand, due to lack of drawers) I looked at the side and realized I could build a nice little cluster, on either side of it. It already has wooden rails for rack mounts, holes in the back (from previous cables for computers) for cooling, and several computers in the cupboard. I just needs a door, power and cooling ducts. What is the best possible way to power 6+ motherboards, with a minimal amount of power-points and heat dissipation? What is the best way to cool those CPU's in minimal space? I'm sure many others on Slashdot have thought about their own clusters, so what are your recommendations on how to go about this?"
I recommend that you buy some ear muffs to deal with the noise.
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What are you going to do with that cluster? What made you suddenly realize you need it?
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So, you're imagining a Beowulf cluster?
"i just needs"
We just needs our precious! Gollum,gollum!
Mini-ITX Cluster has some useful info: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/cluster/
But yeah.. what do you want the cluster for?
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If you have the sort of application which scales well across a parallel processing environment then even the rather underpowered Via Mini-Itx boards would do a good job.
If you had a cluster of Prescott P4's you could probably heat your house all winter.
How to keep it cool. Hmmm. Eh moving a lot of air with a fan usually works. Again this adds to the noise.
Put it in some room wich you can ventilate. Get a big fan and blow it through your rack. If needed use an airco to cool the room.
Most people like their working room a little bit warmer then computers like their room. If you add more computers they might out vote you and force you to admin them in freezing air.
So my answer? I wouldn't put a dozen computers in my desk. In fact I haven't my setup uses a long extension cable and a kvm box. Very very quit. No bulky PC or cables to hide. Nice cooling on the PC. In fact since it is winter I even have to switch some fans off as the HD's are getting a bit cold.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
for question like this. Its why i love slashdot!
Check out Some notes on how to build a Linux cluster and Linux Cluster HOWTO. Good luck!
Sitting at my desk (a bargain second hand, due to lack of drawers) I looked at the side and realized I could build a nice little cluster, on either side of it. It already has wooden rails for rack mounts, holes in the back (from previous cables for computers) for cooling, and several computers in the cupboard.
Never, ever, EVER put electronic parts anywhere in the general vicinity of wood - you're just asking for a conflagration if you do.
One of my best friends was in a professor in a big EE lab that had some benches and risers made of wood - and subsequently burned to the ground. Thereafter he spent several years of his life doing nothing but filling out millions of dollars worth of claims with insurance companies. Trust me - you do not want to go there.
[And he was one of the lucky ones - he got out unscathed.]
It will do a great job of heating your legs, but only if you can stand the fan noise...
But seriously, under your desk is not the place where you want to put a cluster.
but maybe this will helpr +own+pc+cluster&lr=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=nl&q=building+you
Sample this!
Inspired by the discussions on the Beowulf mailing list we built in March 2003 a Beowulf of bare motherboards. You can see it (with text in French) on this site
Everything is made of metal, using ready-made beams to which we attached the motherboards with integrated Broadcom NICs. The cluster (diskless, headless) has been running fine since then. We have one power supply per node in order to maximize cooling and avoid wiring errors if adding motherboard plugs to power supplies : design was made with CATIA V5R6, calculations were done by graduate students in engineering using Flo Therm, and they predicted the temperature inside the cluster within 1 degree C : 27 degrees at steady state for 19 ambient.
The only detail we had forgotten was to make buttons for power and reset, since they are only to be found in ready-made cases ; we lost hours to find the proper socket size on Radiospares.
The design took about 20 hours, the fabrication about one week, software installation (having to find the proper driver for the NICs for clustermatic, setting up PXE) two days, we saved maybe 30 % of the total cost (here about 4000 euros for 8 Athlon 2400 nodes with 1 Gb RAM), had a lot of fun and learning.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Plenty of clusters at the office... oh, talking about computers.... None of those...
Once you have it powered you cluster, have a look at Clusterix, a live-cd distro with openMosix. You can test your power supply and hardware w/out a full install.
(besides fire)...
Even if you're comfortable about the fire risk, you'll need some VERY good cooling -- essentially, keeping the interior below 75F throughout -- to avoid another problem.
Even if the heat doesn't cause warping, eventually the wood joints will start shrinking and/or becoming brittle, causing the desk to fall apart.
Even if you don't mind losing the desk (and the work you put into customizing it), collapse of those wooden rails might damage some equipment.
Perhaps you have an idea what you would do with it? If you don't, then I would suggest spending your time thinking about why you need a cluster, before building one. Building a small cluster is nearly (not quite) like putting together a Lego model - everything is commodity parts, from the boards to the cpus, to the ethernet cables and the switch, etc - even the cluster software is free and easily available. Putting together a cluster will teach you a little, but unless you have plans to use that knowledge personally and/or in the future (ie, job prospects), your time, money and resources may be better spent on other things.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I have been asking that question for a while (check my sig.)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
why are so many people posting questions about what to do with computing power? Geeee, there is soooooo much to compute!!!
Several times I've seen capacitors 'go off' in such a way that a burst of flame came out, and in several cases they have burnt hot enough to cause delamination of pc boards, melt plastic, etc. That would burn wood just fine...