AlanBarber.Org
Monday, March 01, 2004
A mini-itx computer cluster
Found a link to a cool computer cluster project over on mini-itx.com.The creator used twelve Via Epia mini-itx based systems to create the cluster. He used the Epia V8000 motherboards that have 800mhz C3 processors. Each system included 256mb of ram and use 340mb ibm microdrives for hard disks. He used FreeBSD as the os for the cluster.
All in all this little mini supercomputer is very cool. Performance wise it's not that great as with 12 systems all connected it only performs on par with a cluster of 4-6 Intel Pentium 4 systems running at 2.4Ghz. But it's the coolness factor that's more important here. Being able to brag about having a 12 cpu cluster to do heavy duty data processing is a geeks dream come true.
I know I sure want one. Although, I'd go with the M10000 based Via Epia boards. It includes a faster processor, 1ghz, vs the V8000's 800mhz and uses newer PC2100 DDR ram instead of the old pc133 SDRAM of the V8000. This would mean a larger performance kick both from cpu and ram. The price difference for the motherboards is only around $50 dollars and the new ram is roughly the same price as the old style ram so it's well worth the upgrade.
Here's what each node in the cluster would be:
Via Epia M10000 motherboard w/ 1Ghz cpu - $160.00
256mb pc2100 ram - $45.00
IBM 340mb microdrive - $80.00
Microdrive to IDE adapter - $25.00
Drive cable - $2.00
Total price - $312.00
You're looking at roughly $350.00 per node (when you add shipping costs and other misc costs I didn't think off), which isn't too bad of a price. I'd say the project creator had the right idea and a reasonable cluster for playing with at home would contain at least 12 nodes. So price wise you're looking at something like $4000-5000 total to build once you include power, mounting, networking etc. That's pretty reasonable consider people building high-end gaming systems can put in $4000-5000.
Of course I'd love to get a nice big government grant to put together a massive cluster. I'm sure I could get the government to give me like $250,000.00 so I could build a cluster with like 500 nodes. With that kind of computer power I bet the cluster could do some pretty hefty number crunching.
Man just think what that'd look like all wired up. I'd be in heaven!
