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ARM Based Server Cluster Benchmarked
An anonymous reader writes "Anandtech compares the Boston Viridis, a server with Calxeda's ARM server technology, with the typical Intel Xeon technology in a server environment. Turns out that the Quad ARM A9 chip has it weaknesses, but it can offer an amazing performance per Watt ratio in some applications. Anandtech tests bandwidth, compression, decompression, building/compiling and a hosted web environment on top of Ubuntu 12.10."
At least in their tests (highly parallel, lightweight file serving), the ARM nodes offered slightly better throughput at lower power use, although from the looks of it you'd just be giving money to the server manufacturer instead of the power company.
Another way of saying it is that capitalism sort of works. Or at least the laws of supply and demand do.
Product A is cheaper than product B. Demand for Product A increases. Price of Product A increases as price of product B decreases. Per unit of usefulness they end up costing the same.
To get back on topic though in this case energy costs are fixed by supply and demand. At the moment ARM cores are in server terms a niche product so you don't get the benefits of bulk supply. Those efficiencies can be improved on though, cost of energy less so.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
What if you are nearing the limits of the datacenter, cooling, power delivery etc. I don't have exact numbers but the cost for watt is greater than what you pay the power company.
That's more complicated than it looks. On a first look it may seem like this does not change cooling requirements; most datacenter simply use a formula such as watts/3 to get a rough ideas of the needed BTUs. However the more you space out heat sources, the more natural cooling (convection) can do a magnificent job as the air flow is more optimally utilized. Or maybe having more heat sources can mitigate the benefits; it's hard to tell, that's why God created CFD applications.
The only hard limits would be physical space and power distribution inside the datacenter.
This being said, for years datacenters have been built without actual knowledge of how technology would evolve over their lifetime and so far they managed to work with neverending change. This just is one more.
lucm, indeed.
so natural gas costs 30% more per BTU input than fuel oil.
What planet do you live on?
heating oil $4.058/gallon, 138,700 BTU/gallon = $29.26 per million BTU
natural gas $ 0.55143 per hundred cubic feet (ccf), 102,000 BTU's per ccf = $5.41 per million BTU
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Bryant preferred series 110,000 Btu 2 stage 95% efficient: About $1,725
Bryant Preferred 80 115,000 Btu 374RAN oil furnace, 83.5% efficient: $1,779
Same quality unit from the same manufacturer, same input BTU, MORE expensive for the oil and you have to add a fuel tank to the cost of the oil unit. He's simply wrong.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Not quite. When comparing computational performance, they compared against Atoms, and when comparing power consumption they compared against Xeons.
That's deliberately misleading, and even I as an ARM fan (who uses no Intel CPUs at home at all), I think this is bogus. (But I don't blame ARM, I blame AT and the server prociders who were spamvertising on AT.)
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Many (most?) data centers I've been in have been buildings converted from some other use -- office buildings, warehouses, etc. But regardless of how they are built, they always seem to have relatively low ceilings, even in converted spaces where they rip out the ceiling grid.
I get the density argument, but I often wonder if someone built a data center with a 50 foot ceiling (a large, flat building) if you wouldn't gain some cooling benefit from convection that would be worth the sacrifice in vertical density versus the cost in intensive forced air cooling.
I don't see why high ceilings would make a difference - you have X BTU/hr of heat to remove - letting it accumulate at the ceiling doesn't seem to make much difference (unless you have a lot of conductive losses through the walls/ceiling).
I can't beleive there's any economic argument for giving up 66% - 75% of your potential floor space (12 or 16 foot ceilings versus 48 foot ceilings) just to let heat rise to the ceiling.
Hot aisles make the heat exchangers more efficient.
That's not the point of improved convection. The idea is not to let heat rise, it is to give more room to the air so the flow can establish wider patterns, bringing cooler air in contact with the heat source without requiring additional power for blowers. Contrary to popular misconception, there is no need to blow artic air on a server to cool it down.
lucm, indeed.
To the point about fuel prices (and other things), have you ever considered that the government restrictions cause some of the price differentials? I mean, after all, we can't drill, or build pipelines or refineries or ... due to government restrictions.
so .... what does a govt get out of restrictions? under the table payments from those deep-pocketed environmental non-profits. or maybe it's Big Solar lobbyists? wait ...
you can make the point that the govt is misguided in placing restrictions drilling, pipelines, etc ... but it isn't greed. there's clearly more $ to be had all around by sucking every drop out of domestic oil deposits.