question about a farm/cluster?

[metloaf]

Ok, I really have been following many different links and projects regarding building your own cluster or farm setup, however I am curious as to what the limitations are. Are you limited by the CPU and mobos as far as they have to be identical to perform the operations in parallel? For example FSB, mem bandwith, CPU ghz, etc. Or can you use different type of mobos and CPUs and still "network" them via software? I really am curious because most of the cluster projects seem to use identical setups just multiplied by whatever number they need or can afford.

[ghettocomp]

It depends on what you want your Farm to do. If you have other computing needs
besides folding, it probably would be best to have identical client layers. To just use
the Clusters for folding only, as in my case, I just use whatever I find on sale. this gives
a great mix for getting different WUs. In each client layer, you probably should have
at least 256Mb Ram with 512 being great for a start. I have layers that have only 96mb
ram and work just fine (Slow, but fine)
I have been using the Diskless Windows setup since I found the Info on that for several
weeks now, and besides a couple of expected minor adjustments, have had no problems.

in my Farm are Semprons, Athlon XPs, a couple of Dualie PII's, Celerons & a P4, All the rigs
are using the same software, and apparently getting the appropriate WU's with no
problems. Any other questions are fine. I hope I have given something to consider. :)

[metloaf]

Yes you did, thanks a lot. I was really considering a mega build and I liked your design. I am contemplating possibly 10-12 CPU's, most of which I have found retty cheap on ebay and other sources. :cool:

[ghettocomp]

If you live near a Frys Elextroniks they have great deals on AMD processor &
motherboard combos almost weekly. If not outpost.com has the same
(sometimes cheaper) deals. There are times they even have some really
great prices on Intel stuff too. I try to keep it all under $100/Layer but that
is just because of the extremely cheap PSUs I get. Getting higher Quality
PSUs probably is a better way to go as well.