[Beowulf] Re: Intro question

[Mark Hahn]

> I would think about a blade system for this particular application.

aren't blades still a significant premium?

> (Say) one of the Supermicro blade enclosures. You could start small for
> development with one or two blades,

well, nothing beats the incremental expandability of a stack of 
separate boxes.  given that modern cpus are drastically cooler 
(esp per flop) than even 2 years ago, fans rarely run fast.

> then expand. Should be easy enough to transport to the hosting location when
> you are ready.

a blade chassis usually requires power other than the usual 15A circuit;
nothing custom of course (L6-30 is my favorite) but something like a 
dual-board supermicro 1U is pretty convenient and flexible.

> You can get acoustically quiet racks to put them in if it is going in an
> office, but that will inevitably cost more.

if office, I'd certainly just get minitowers.  but I wouldn't consider 
putting more than a few in an office, since a ~250W minitower already
corresponds to the power dissipation of two people...