What do you think about building a mini pc cluster for folding

mescalin · December 4, 2019

Hello,

I'm folding for folding@home with my desktop and rtx 2080 however I want to build a cluster for Rosetta@home because I think they are producing very important papers these days. Rosetta uses Cpu only so I can buy mini pcs and I can have many of them running in a small space without building complicated racks etc.

I'm interested in Asus VivoMini VC66. Do you know if it can handle continuous workload? Do you think heat will be a problem for a mini pc?

Radium_Angel · December 4, 2019

11 minutes ago, mescalin said:

I want to build a cluster

Do you know how to cluster the systems together to work as one? If you do, then go for it.

mescalin · December 4, 2019

8 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Do you know how to cluster the systems together to work as one? If you do, then go for it.

Nope I dont know that and I think I dont need to. Maybe cluster is the long term for that. I just wanted to say that I want to run many of them at the same time on the shelfs. I don't need to configure them to work as one. I can remote control them but I dont know If those mini pcs can handle continious run.

Radium_Angel · December 4, 2019

4 minutes ago, mescalin said:

Nope I dont know that and I think I dont need to. Maybe cluster is the long term for that. I just wanted to say that I want to run many of them at the same time on the shelfs. I don't need to configure them to work as one. I can remote control them but I dont know If those mini pcs can handle continious run.

That's a different story then, entirely.

In which case, cooling is your issue and I'd venture if they are on a shelf somewhere, run them topless with a fan blowing across the shelf.

Gorgon · December 5, 2019

6 hours ago, mescalin said:

Hello,

I'm folding for folding@home with my desktop and rtx 2080 however I want to build a cluster for Rosetta@home because I think they are producing very important papers these days. Rosetta uses Cpu only so I can buy mini pcs and I can have many of them running in a small space without building complicated racks etc.

I'm interested in Asus VivoMini VC66. Do you know if it can handle continuous workload? Do you think heat will be a problem for a mini pc?

I suspect after 3 or 5 of these the cost would be cheaper just getting a used dual socket Xeon system and running that. There are quite a few people here with experience buying and running these who could likely help.

So instead of multiple little boxes with few Threads per CPU a single system with a Couple of CPUs with 20-30 threads each.

Or if you really want new hardware buy AMD Ryzen 7 2700 or 2700x CPUs as they are really discounted now and b450 motherboards and build a few discrete systems.