renderfarm Building Beast CPU renderfarm - please help

[Xcage]

Hey all , 

 

I hope you guys will help me,

 

I am now in the process of building a CPU based render farm

1 - which OS is the best to use. i am currently installing WIN10 on all my machines.

I dont have Hardware and licenses problem , i got somewhere around 30 - HP ProLiant DL380 G6 and G7 Servers and each have DUAL X5670 or X5550 xeon processors installed.

2 - how much RAM do i need to install in each of them, also which hard disks are better to use.

 

On my master machine - currently i am using Dual OCZ TR150 240GB in raid0.1 formation (yes its raid 0 and raid1 both - the raid controller on those require to use raid even if i have only 1 physical disk)

On my slaves machines i plan on using only 1 physical 240 SSD drive on each (unless you guys tell me that its totally wrong)

 

I am a techie , BUT i had absolutely no idea how servers work untill i started to install those things, i am sure that if i install WIN10PRO on each slave and WIN10ENTERPRISE on the main machine i am all set , and can use network render features of graphic programs. i have enthusiast experience with working with graphic software like Photoshop , after effects , Sony Vegas , premiere etc , but no real professional idea of what those programs are capable of.

therefore 

3 - which software do i need to use ? i mean do i have to have all those graphic programs installed to render different files? or is there some single program that will support all formats for rendering? or maybe do i have to use multiboot for different programs therefore have lets say 3 boot options of OS for 3 different render programs? (doesnt sound logical to me tho)

4 - Storage , do i need to have alot of storage space on all my slaves ?(doesnt make sense for me) or can i just use like couple of 6TB mechanical drives in raid 1 or 5 formation on my master machine to import starting files and export finished files to?

i prefer to NOT work with Linux,MAC(OSX) since i dont really have experience using it besides installing and looking into the basic features of Ubuntu.

 

Any help tips , suggestions are greatly appreciated!

[vorticalbox]

what are you rendering? 

[DannyRyu]

can it not be GPU based because GPU based rendering is much more efficient and way better bang for buck.

[Xcage]

5 minutes ago, DannyRyu said:

can it not be GPU based because GPU based rendering is much more efficient and way better bang for buck.

i have a stockload of those G6 and G7 servers with good CPUs , to make it a GPU farm i would need to buy all the necessary hardware

13 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

what are you rendering? 

it will be used mostly to render premiere and maya projects.