Building rack mounted render slaves

[tricky]

Anyone done this?

What are my considerations for embarking on this? I've built many machines before and I'm reasonably competent, but I've never built a rack system before. Our server is in a rack, though its on a table (!) as we don't have a closet at the moment, but I figured it might be a good way forward.

Is it simply a matter of pick a case and then choose a normal ATX motherboard/hard disk/processor etc but just have longer cables on everything so that they can be fitted alongside the MB? Or, do I need to look for special components - in which case it would obviously raise the cost and make it uneconomical?

[jacksc02]

Hi Tricky,
we are slowly building up our rack mounted render farm.
I managed to find some 2U chasis that will fit a tyan tomcat mobo that will fit a AMD 4400 x2 proc. Some mods had to be done to the stock heatsink as it wouldnt fit. We had to use a xeon heatsink with a side fan.
The heatsick is the only problem you will face when putting one of these units together.
Let me know if you need any more information

[Dynedain]

I've priced it out a few times in the past. It can be tricky finding slim-format components (particularily heatsinks) when trying to squeeze into a 1U or 2U case. (1U is sooo much sexier, but deffinitely pricier). What I've found is that once you factor in the cost of your time in speccing/ordering parts/ assembling/ and then the support, you end up spending the same amount or more as a vendor solution. And there really is something to be said for the peace of mind in knowing that if a component fails, it's the vendor's responsibility to replace/fix it.

[cpnichols]

Hey tricky... don't know how mich racks servers are these days, but in terms of footprint, speed and noise, this is a pretty sweet deal...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101809

Can add 2 Opterons in there and and get it up and running for a farm for arounf $1,500 per computer. So 10 of them would give you 20 CPUs for $15,000. That is a pretty good deal. Just thowing it out there. You can pretty much stack them like bricks as well.

[armilla]

Armari build these Iwill small form factor machines in the UK, but it looks like they work out a lot more expensive than building them yourself in the US. The Armari spec is probably over the top in terms of graphics card, HDD, DVD, etc for a render box though.

http://www.armari.com/system.asp?SysID=252

[Da_elf]

why build a rack system in a 1u or 2u case? why not just have a cabinate where you can roll out the entire motherboard and have tonnes of them in there hehe. and buy a small A/C unit for the cabinate. kinda like the blades at www.rackserver.com hehe

[tricky]

Hey tricky... don't know how mich racks servers are these days, but in terms of footprint, speed and noise, this is a pretty sweet deal...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101809

Can add 2 Opterons in there and and get it up and running for a farm for arounf $1,500 per computer. So 10 of them would give you 20 CPUs for $15,000. That is a pretty good deal. Just thowing it out there. You can pretty much stack them like bricks as well.

So how would you compare - speedwise - this setup to one of the Shuttle SN25P machines with an AMD X2 processor in it? I assume the X2 machine would be better, no? Maybe not - I should do some research.