what is a good chassis for a farm?

[veryhumid]

I was going over the diskless setups, so you need a power supply for every other layer, memory, processor, motherboard and a cd-rom drive. But where do you put the cd rom drive. So my question. What can I use to make some folding layers, maybe 4 high. The only thing that comes to mind is those pc cases that lay horizontally on the plane of the desk, not stand vertically. any other options?

 

[David]

I was going over the diskless setups, so you need a power supply for every other layer, memory, processor, motherboard and a cd-rom drive. But where do you put the cd rom drive. So my question. What can I use to make some folding layers, maybe 4 high. The only thing that comes to mind is those pc cases that lay horizontally on the plane of the desk, not stand vertically. any other options?

How about some good ol DIY shelving

Although desktop cases would be an option.

 

[Mr.Furious]

I like the plexiglass farms personally but its a lot of work... just get some premade shelving or make your own.... you dont need them to be in cases.

 

[sandman001]

Put up some pegboard on your wall, and hang it all up high along the ceiling.

 

[veryhumid]

yeah i have no experience with plexiglass i'm sure i would break a lot of it. The pegboard sounds nice, the shelving sounds good too. Too bad all the boards can't boot off one cd-rom.

 

[SK8]

Hey, to save ur self some $$$ just get mobos that can boot off the network and run a older comp for a server so that eliminates cdroms and hard disks

 

[Skylarkman]

theres a guy out who has built an entire wooden Frame for his farms if i remember correctly when Shrom was thinking about building one he contacted the guy and was going to have him build it for him I cant remember the site right now but if someone see shroms on line ask him it was really neat looking... EDIT his name is haysdb @ SPCR and heres a snap shot of it

 

[Arkaine23]

Yeah, you don't necessarily need a CD-rom drive in each layer if you have mobo's with Linux PXE-bootable NIC's.

 

[veryhumid]

eek, i have no experience with PXE. Anyone know where I can learn to make a server for a group of comps to boot from? Can I do this with windows?

That wooden frame is AWESOME. I'll definitely ask him about it.

Also guys we forgot about rackspaces!!! There are lots around, you just have to get a board that won't need big pci cards sticking up. I know some of the 1U definitely need a low profile power supply and those slanted memory slots, though.

http://www.antec.com/us/pro_rackmounts.html

 

[Arkaine23]

Overclockix LTSP is a variant of Knoppix designed to make setting up an LTSP server for folding farms as simple as possible (because most of the work has already been done for you).

http://overclockix.octeams.com

 

[veryhumid]

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Nooooooo. I'll check it out once it is back up, I think I am going to go with rack units if possible. They don't take up much space and you can get a nice rackspace tower for them.

 

[hrdwrjnkie]

I think I am going to go with rack units if possible. They don't take up much space and you can get a nice rackspace tower for them.

You're gonna wanna watch the heat levels on that rack, theose guys can get pretty warm.

 

[veryhumid]

ohhh a couple delta 190 CFM should deal with that, . I like the deskputer!

 

[SK8]

I wouldnt do a rack. You gotta get a rack (200-300) + 1u cases for all nodes (70 per case) when all that can be put to a better cpu!

 

[Fast420A]

My rack is just the width of a mATX board. On the bottom level I have the drives and single PSU for the first 2 levels and then there is the 4 layers and then the top has another PSU and drives for the top 2 layers. The airflow on it is fine as there are no sides retaining the heat in like the other styles do.