32 + 8 nodes beowulf cluster design.

[Douglas Eadline]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Jared Hodge wrote:

> Paul Maragakis wrote:
> > 
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > I have just drafted a proposal listing the hardware components and their
> > prices for a 40 nodes beowulf using 1.2 GHz Athlons, 8*1.5 GB + 32*512 MB
> > memory, a double fast-ethernet network, and a front-end for storage and
> > administration.  The draft is at:
> > http://hdsc.deas.harvard.edu/~plm/beowulf.pdf
> > All comments are highly appreciated, especially those regarding the
> > network, the UPS and the price estimates.
> > 
> > Take care,
> > 
> > Paul
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
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> 
> Paul,
> 
> 	As someone who has recently had to write a proposal for a Beowulf
> cluster, I thought I'd check yours out and see if I could learn anything
> and make a few suggestions from what I've learned.  This is kind of
> long, so if your on the Beowulf list and not interested in this, you may
> want to just skip this E-mail.
> 	Ok, first off, I know some of your prices are a little high.  Our local
> vendor of choice listed 512MB memory (for PIII) at just over $500, and
> you may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere.  It would definitely be
> worth the time since that's the predominant cost of your cluster.  Like
> you said though, you want to leave a little room for unexpected costs.

A word of caution. DO NOT buy the cheapest DRAM you can find.
Use DIMMs that have been qualified for your your motherboard.
Otherwise you may learn a costly lesson about DRAM quality.
(of course the cheap stuff works on windows)

Doug
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