[Beowulf] RE: Capitalization Rates - How often should you replace a cluster? (resent - 1st sending wasn't posted ).

[Mark Hahn]

> Without going into a big research project.. Here in Southern California,
> rents are about $1/sq ft/month for cheap industrial space. Electricity is
> about $0.20/kWh (maybe for a big bulk consumer, it gets down to the
> $0.10/kWh range)

hmm.  "wholesale" power here is $Cdn .05/kWh - on home bills it gets padded
out to about $.10 by "delivery" and "debt retirement" surcharges.

> Figure a node draws 400w, and you can stack 20 nodes in a rack, which

hmm.  I find 1U typicalfor clusters, and see 350W as typical.

> occupies 10 square feet (need to have room to stand in front of the rack,
> etc.)

I'd probably go 3 tiles/rack - mainly for airflow.

> The rent is tiny compared to utilities.  $2K/node seems plausible (3*

hmm, another difference is that I'd expect to pay ~$5k for an HPC node.

thanks, mark hahn.