Cluster

I am in the planning pahse for building my very own cluster. The first step, for me, is to find the right hardware for the job. I am looking for something that is very low cost and very small, so I have decided on using mATX. Anyway, the shopping list that I have so far is as follows.

• Asus A7V400-MX - $47.00
• AMD Athlon XP 2500+ - $98.00
• PDP 512MB DDR333 - $83.00
• Ahanix X119 - $53.00
• Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM - $48.00
• Samsung 52X CD-ROM - $15.99
• Liteon black keyboard - $5.99
• Microsoft black optical mouse - $15.00
• Total - $365.98

Can anyone forsee any problems with this hardware?

Thanks,
tf

 

id help but i dont kno wat u mean by cluster, tell me i can, but thats looks like a decent enuff rig. im a n00b kinda

 

How many machines wil be in this cluster, and what do you need to use it for?

 

I assume that's the spec for each computer in your cluster-to-be?

You usually have a large shared central storage location (not 40GB in each computer).

You won't need a mouse & keyboard for each computer either. You can probably get rid of the CD-ROM too.

 

It really depends on what this cluster is setting out to do. If say it is stuff like SETI (distributed, non-coupled calculations) then this sort of machine would be fine. (I assume you would be getting quite a few)

If however you are thinking of doing something more along the lines of multi-processor programming and the like you may want to think about the communications between the PCs. If you have a program which is spread amongst the computers there will need to be some communications and these take time. If you need lots of communications to be happening then I would recommend getting fewer more powerful machines (perhaps with more memory).

However I am coming from a super-computer background (UK based HPCX machine if anyone is interested) so may be over doing things.

Chris