Cluster Cube

When I saw the first Nano ITX boards announced I got this idea..

Basically it boils down to 4 nano ITX boards, 1 4-port kvm switch, 4 hdds (they don't have to be huge 20-40GB more then enough), and a 4 port 10/100 switch (or a cable router could be used depending on the usage), and a custom modified power supply in a custom made cube. It would probably need a fair amount of strategically placed fans as well.

So when your done you would have a cube that has 1 vga output, keyboard, and mouse, and using the uplink or wan port on the switch. By using the mini itx boards you could have the power of 4 1-1.5 ghz computers in a size that is smaller then most regular desktop computers.

Uses could be a linux cluster, or a desktop 4 node render farm. Maybe a firewall setup with a dedicated mail server, webserver, etc..

Just an idea..

EDIT: Wow first thread in the new section!!

The problem with the Nano-ITX boards is they require a special powersupply for each board. And as far as I can remember Nano-ITX only goes upto 1GHz using 'Luke'.

If you browse through http://www.mini-itx.com you will find you're not the first person to have to idea, but you can get ideas from them and improve on those ideas.

You could call it a mini super computer!

Yah I figured the power supply would be the trickiest part of it all.. I came across the setup with the 12 mini's in it after I thought of the idea with the nano.. Its pretty cool.. but its HUGE.. my idea was to keep it small and compact..

what are the advantages of running a cluster?

Honestly for the average person or home.. NONE that I can think of.. Really clustering is useful in enterprise situations. It increases the availabilty of the applications that are hosted on the cluster. It helps combine the power of the processors and allows for redundancy incase one of the nodes goes down. So if you are hosting a mail server and one of the machines blows a power supply, the cluster will continue to serve mail, where as if that was a single machine, your phone would be ringing off the hook because the executive secretary down the hall can't check their mail :).
Its also very good for environments that need to do LOTs of calculations in short order. I know that alot of weather agencies use them to perform analisys of data for predictions etc, NASA uses them for trajectory analysis. In fact the whole SETI@home and Folding@home are basically forms of a cluster. So having a small form factor cluster at home is probably only for the geekiest of us but it would be possible..

Really my main intention for something like this would be a render farm for 3d applications such as Lightwave. More for the hobbiest so they can kick out 4 more frames then a single pc could. With it being only 1Ghz it would still be slow compared to alot of high end PC's, but when it takes an 30 or more minutes to render a single frame, 4 nodes can make a significant difference..

Well, to tell you the turth, I've actually designed a cluster computer using the DFI Pent. M mobo and some medium powered CPUs.... it would be very good for that type of application but I have a different idea. MY first Mini-ITX PC I want to be able to power it without an external power source having it's own electric generator.... it's an interesting concept and may be fesible..... but it seems it would be slightly noisy......

The cool thing about running 4 PC's on a 3d render, is that if you have mental ray, then 4 sections of each frame are rendered simultaneously. And if each of those chips have hyperthreading, then you'll end up getting 8 sections at a time. Which i think is pretty neat, and would sure make renders a whole lot faster.

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Originally Posted by crenn

MY first Mini-ITX PC I want to be able to power it without an external power source having it's own electric generator.... it's an interesting concept and may be fesible..... but it seems it would be slightly noisy......

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Hell ya.. that would be very cool... but I think your right on the noise. Solar power would be cool as well but probably not going to get enough juice without a VERY large array..

Steam powered generator would be interesting.. Just think all you would need is fire and water.. kind of an elemental thing going.. but then again I dont think it would cut down on the noise and of course the whole thing could blow up if it got away from ya.. :D

Who's talking about a steam engine? I'm talking about a new type of engine!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crenn

Who's talking about a steam engine? I'm talking about a new type of engine!!

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Sorry I think I was just thinking out loud.. New engine?? This could get interesting real fast...