Comment Re:amd for less (Score 1) 231
You don't need the hard drive. It's much cheaper and more efficient to use BOOTP or something and NFS similar with a centralized (non clustered) data storage server, preferably RAIDed out the ass.
Benefits include:
1. Fast drive access because of RAID stripping (net lag on a LAN isn't all that important compared to hard drive access times).
2. Data integrity (if using RAID mirroring).
3. Lower power consumption
4. No moving parts in the nodes
5. BOOTP makes upgrading the kernel on all nodes a linear time operation (the upgrade is once, but the reboots are O(n) ).
6. NFS mounted root (and other) filesystems make upgrading software a constant time operation.
However, you won't be able to use most integrated net cards for this.
I agree with taking out the floppies and cdroms, put them in the file server.
If you go SMP, don't use durons, get the full on athlons. Besides not being certified for SMP by AMD, the cache size in the Durons sucks ass for SMP (also why the dual celeron thing a while back licked).
Last but not least, spend the extra money and get some decent cases that don't take up too much space. Considering how bloody empty the case will be, the smaller the better.
Benefits include:
1. Fast drive access because of RAID stripping (net lag on a LAN isn't all that important compared to hard drive access times).
2. Data integrity (if using RAID mirroring).
3. Lower power consumption
4. No moving parts in the nodes
5. BOOTP makes upgrading the kernel on all nodes a linear time operation (the upgrade is once, but the reboots are O(n) ).
6. NFS mounted root (and other) filesystems make upgrading software a constant time operation.
However, you won't be able to use most integrated net cards for this.
I agree with taking out the floppies and cdroms, put them in the file server.
If you go SMP, don't use durons, get the full on athlons. Besides not being certified for SMP by AMD, the cache size in the Durons sucks ass for SMP (also why the dual celeron thing a while back licked).
Last but not least, spend the extra money and get some decent cases that don't take up too much space. Considering how bloody empty the case will be, the smaller the better.
