View Full Version : Ouch!! SETI Career at risk
Just got a letter in the mail today. I'm going to be losing my internet connection. Currently I use an EVDO Aircard as my ISP (cell phone internet). I live on an acreage with dial up and satellite as my only other options. It's been working great for >2 year now. I get unlimited data ~1-1.5Mbps with ~150ms pings. Well, they're getting rid of the unlimited plan and they're going to put me on a 5GB/month plan.
I just can't keep running SETI with that kind of cap. With the efficiency of my CUDA rigs, they're processing through hundreds, if not thousands of workunits every day and driving up the bandwidth. Wasn't an issue before, but it is now. This really sucks, because I just got 2 more GTX 260's from the classifieds here a couple of weeks ago. They're not even installed yet.
I'll try and come up with something. A dedicated dialup plan and phone line just for SETI would cost ~$55/mth. For Dialup!! The cheapest satellite package is $50/mth with a 200MB/day download limit. If I water cool my main rig I could bring it to the office, it's too noisy to bring there right now. Plus it's currently caseless. I can't believe something as simple as internet might collapse the SETI farm.
Voodoo Rufus
04-15-10, 05:23 PM
How much bandwidth do you use per month for Seti? I have a hard time believing it would be very much.
That sucks that you'll lose the unlimited data. I'm not sure how big the SETI work units are, but up/downloading a few thousand a week isn't hard for guys with sizable farms. I can see where it could take a large chunk out of his limit.
EDIT: Most of my WUs are 366KB. 3000 of those a week would make over 4 gigs of data in a month. That's just for downloads, not sure what size the uploaded files are.
uploads are only ~28KB each so lets just round that up to 400KB per WU. 24hrs a day = 1440 minutes/day. Some workunits are 15mins, some as short as 2.5mins. Lets take a conservative average of 10minute workunits for the simplicity of math on my GTX 260's. I've got 3 right now, 2 more in the mail. My 9800GX2 ~ 2 x 9800GT ~ GTX 260, so overall I've got 8 GTX 260 equivalents.
8 x 144 WU/day x 400KB/WU x 30 days/month (I'm on 24/7) = 13.8GB/month. Currently I estimate 10-15GB/month and I don't have my 2 new GTX 260's yet. That's just with SETI which is well over my new 5GB/month limit BEFORE day to day use.
Careface
04-15-10, 11:12 PM
Ah crud, that sucks mate :( What happens after you use the 5gb/month? Do you get capped, or does it simply cost more per MB? Short of changing plan (if at all possible), I don't think there's much you can do about it :( I had the same problem when I first bought my GTX260 - I was on a 10gb cap and I was seeing SETI use around half of that. NZ has complete rubbish internet comparatively, so the only thing I could do was change to a 20gb plan that I pay out the ass for >_<
Oh, and sometimes take my laptop to university and replenish my laptop's cache there >_>;
I'm fairly certain the folks at SETI aren't willing to start compressing the WU at their end before sending them out, as they simply don't have the resources spare to do so :(
Good luck mate, hope something can be worked out! 5gb/month is.. well, it's like living here! Sucks totally :(
It's a standard, for Canada, plan. $65 for 5GB/month and 5 cents per MB after that. I'll figure something out eventually. I just may be gone for longer than originally planned.
You could send them rigs down my way. :D
I've got unlimited (supposedly) cable. I might even leave some of them running under your SETI account. :chair:
FloridaBear
04-16-10, 12:55 PM
I'm fairly certain the folks at SETI aren't willing to start compressing the WU at their end before sending them out, as they simply don't have the resources spare to do so :(
Probably right, but even if they did, these units are essentially "noise," and as such, do not compress that much. A 370K unit compresses to about 270K--so you save some, but you'd still be dealing with a lot of bandwidth.
QuietIce
04-16-10, 01:11 PM
uploads are only ~28KB each so lets just round that up to 400KB per WU. 24hrs a day = 1440 minutes/day. Some workunits are 15mins, some as short as 2.5mins. Lets take a conservative average of 10minute workunits for the simplicity of math on my GTX 260's. I've got 3 right now, 2 more in the mail. My 9800GX2 ~ 2 x 9800GT ~ GTX 260, so overall I've got 8 GTX 260 equivalents.
8 x 144 WU/day x 400KB/WU x 30 days/month (I'm on 24/7) = 13.8GB/month. Currently I estimate 10-15GB/month and I don't have my 2 new GTX 260's yet. That's just with SETI which is well over my new 5GB/month limit BEFORE day to day use. I went about the calculations a little differently using an RAC of 80k and an average WU credit of 80, so 1k WU/day which comes up to 12 GB/month. I never realized how much bandwidth SETI gobbles up myself until you pointed it out. Bummer! :(
You're pretty resourceful, though, so I'm sure you'll work something out. We'll keep the porch light on ... :)
It's a standard, for Canada, plan. $65 for 5GB/month and 5 cents per MB after that. I'll figure something out eventually. I just may be gone for longer than originally planned.
what part are you from ?
You could send them rigs down my way. :D
I've got unlimited (supposedly) cable. I might even leave some of them running under your SETI account. :chair:
You sound like my wife. She's already wondering when I'm going to start selling off the farm.
I went about the calculations a little differently using an RAC of 80k and an average WU credit of 80, so 1k WU/day which comes up to 12 GB/month. I never realized how much bandwidth SETI gobbles up myself until you pointed it out. Bummer! :(
You're pretty resourceful, though, so I'm sure you'll work something out. We'll keep the porch light on ... :)
Yeah, I'll be back for sure.
what part are you from ?
I live just west of Olds, Alberta.
Oh I know exactly where that is. I'm usually by there at leats once or twice a week. nice area.
Ok, things are already looking up.
Rogers has an EVDO Rocket Hub that's $60 for 10GB of data/month and "only" $5/GB after that.
http://www.rogers.com/web/content/internet-mobile/rockethub
If I used my average $25GB/month, that would cost me $135/month. I was paying $100/month for unlimited so obviously I'm still getting screwed. I think I can reduce my month bandwidth usage down to 20GB/month (SETI + day to day). At that point, it'll be $110/month, close to what I was paying before, but I'd have to be very careful with what I download.
Also, the local Telus dealer said they are coming out with a similar Hub device, but he's unsure about pricing yet. Hopefully they'll have some sweet deals to match/beat Rogers.
FYI Rogers = Big Telecom in Eastern Canada and Telus = Big Telecom in Western Canada.
have you looked into Bell Internet service – Portable 3 Mbps ? They also have another option, althrough they are vagure when it comes to bandwidth so I have no idea what they would include, however prices are not too bad.
Bell portable is not available in my area. They've chosen, almost randomly it looks like, a number of cities/towns to install it in. It's based on fixed wireless technology, not cell tech, so coverage areas are quite limited. Think of Fixed wireless as "super WiFi". The local fixed wireless company in Olds, Mountain Aire, has a transmitting tower not 1km from my house. However, because I live in a bit of a valley, they said it would take a $5000 tower to actually receive the signal.
Can you go somewhere and DL workunits onto computer A, then transfer all those workunits to computers B, C, D, etc. when you get home?
As far as I know, workunits are not transferable between computers for SETI. You can back up an entire SETI folder, but then only restore it to the computer that it was backed up from. BOINC knows what computer it's on and won't accept data files from another computer. If someone knows otherwise, then I would be very interested in that. I do have access to a broadband connection at work.
Careface
04-19-10, 09:51 PM
As far as I know, workunits are not transferable between computers for SETI. You can back up an entire SETI folder, but then only restore it to the computer that it was backed up from. BOINC knows what computer it's on and won't accept data files from another computer. If someone knows otherwise, then I would be very interested in that. I do have access to a broadband connection at work.
Mm, not possible sorry mate. Once the scheduler on the server end has assigned WU, they are non-transferable :(
It's a shame really, would be cool to be able to download a massive bunch (several thousand) of WU to a server at home, and just have other rigs on the local network pick from the home server - would limit the number of unique IPs (and thus overall connections to the server) and let you load share between all your rigs, rather than when SETI work is getting dry, your CUDABeast rig gets the odd trickle of WU, and your tenured single core AMD rig gets a nice 100 WU cache that'll take days to get through, when the CUDABeast could crunch through them in 1/10th the time.
Sadly, not going to happen though :(
Mm, not possible sorry mate. Once the scheduler on the server end has assigned WU, they are non-transferable :(
It's a shame really, would be cool to be able to download a massive bunch (several thousand) of WU to a server at home, and just have other rigs on the local network pick from the home server - would limit the number of unique IPs (and thus overall connections to the server) and let you load share between all your rigs, rather than when SETI work is getting dry, your CUDABeast rig gets the odd trickle of WU, and your tenured single core AMD rig gets a nice 100 WU cache that'll take days to get through, when the CUDABeast could crunch through them in 1/10th the time.
Sadly, not going to happen though :(
thats how it was in the old school days :)
Careface
04-22-10, 11:19 PM
thats how it was in the old school days :)
Yeah :) I never used the program that let you do that though, as I only had one rig crunching back in classic days, and it was taking 4-6hours to crunch.. Didn't seem all that useful to me :p
Thankfully the whole BOINC system made things much easier overall, what with WU caches for one thing, but its a shame WU are now assigned to one rig ID :(
You could probably spoof the WU output to make it look as though its from X computer ID, but 1) that'd be against the rules, and 2) would be far too much hassle to get working, especially seeing as if anything goes wrong, the BOINC client simply rejects anything that "shouldn't" be in the SETI folder lol
myststix
04-23-10, 02:48 AM
Have you considered maybe pumping a regular wifi signal to the nearest broadband connection? I know you said you live in a valley, but CAT5 cable is pretty cheap.
with external antenna, I got a 500meter range out of my old linksys. I didn't want to pay for a high speed line for my shop down the road from my home, so I pumped up the signal a bit.
FloridaBear
04-23-10, 07:22 AM
Have you considered maybe pumping a regular wifi signal to the nearest broadband connection? I know you said you live in a valley, but CAT5 cable is pretty cheap.
with external antenna, I got a 500meter range out of my old linksys. I didn't want to pay for a high speed line for my shop down the road from my home, so I pumped up the signal a bit.
Or how about one of these (http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6311)? Just point it where the signal is...LOL
sephkeene
04-23-10, 07:49 AM
Or how about one of these (http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6311)? Just point it where the signal is...LOL
That's the way to do it. I live in the back woods of Maine and I have a panel antenna on my bridge to acquire signal from my father's HugesNet system.
Or how about one of these (http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6311)? Just point it where the signal is...LOL
There is a broadband fixed wireless solution very close to my house, but as I stated in an earlier post, they want $5000 to install a tower that'll be tall enough to even get the signal. The tower would be placed a couple of hundred meters away from my house for optimal signal pickup. That directional antenna in your link wouldn't pick anything up at all.
Have you considered maybe pumping a regular wifi signal to the nearest broadband connection? I know you said you live in a valley, but CAT5 cable is pretty cheap.
with external antenna, I got a 500meter range out of my old linksys. I didn't want to pay for a high speed line for my shop down the road from my home, so I pumped up the signal a bit.
The nearest neighbour with Broadband is about 1km away and across a highway. I don't have line of site to any of my neighbours, so it's not likely any signal will get through. You were fortunate because you already had broadband in your house and you just needed to get it to your shop.
It's the cost I have to pay for choosing to live on a farm I guess. It's beautiful though. 139 acres, with a river that winds straight down the middle.
There is a broadband fixed wireless solution very close to my house, but as I stated in an earlier post, they want $5000 to install a tower that'll be tall enough to even get the signal. The tower would be placed a couple of hundred meters away from my house for optimal signal pickup. That directional antenna in your link wouldn't pick anything up at all.
The nearest neighbour with Broadband is about 1km away and across a highway. I don't have line of site to any of my neighbours, so it's not likely any signal will get through. You were fortunate because you already had broadband in your house and you just needed to get it to your shop.
It's the cost I have to pay for choosing to live on a farm I guess. It's beautiful though. 139 acres, with a river that winds straight down the middle.
sounds nice, i went for a long drive down 22 today :)
Careface
04-26-10, 11:06 AM
Okay, I'm not sure if you're still in this predicament Duner, but I may have a temporary solution for you.
It is in fact possible to crunch WU on a different rig than the one the WU were originally assigned to. I tested this myself with my laptop and pc.
This assumes you have BOINC and seti set up on two rigs, and you want to transfer WU from rig 1 to rig 2
Suspend BOINC on rig 1, also suspend Network connections
Copy entire BOINC data folder from rig 1, keep a backup just in case.
Make sure BOINC is not running on rig 2. Replace BOINC data on rig 2, with the one from rig 1. (Backup before though, just in case)
Start BOINC on rig 2.
Everything should start crunching, if not, well.. you have your backups.
Once you've finished crunching on rig 2, do the steps above in reverse - transfer from rig 2 to rig 1. Report from rig 1! I'm not sure if reporting from rig 2 will work, but reporting from rig 1 should work.
The reason this may help is if you have access to any other pc thats connected to the net and has BOINC/SETI installed - even if only temporarily.
Theoretically, you could also use rescheduler to change CPU->GPU WU, but I haven't tested this. Might run into problems if you try and report CUDA WU from a pc that doesn't have a CUDA card... again, haven't tested.
Might help, might not :) If not, at least it's theoretically possible to crunch stuff on another pc, then report from the original pc. At this time, I haven't figured out a way to transfer individual WU across, and I suspect it's not possible.. but some altering of the client_state.xml might make it work locally, but wouldn't validate once reported (might not even be able to report)
Yeah, still an issue. I'll give that a try, but honestly, it sounds like a lot of work if I was going to try to keep all 4 of my rigs topped up. I'll move over my work computer's folder and see if it takes with one of my home machines.
Thanks
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