-----Original Message----- From: Chris Hellyar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CLUG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:21 AM Subject: RE: firewall/routers
>Total: $842.63 > >That'd give you a machine with an 850Mhz processor, 133Mhz front side bus, >S3 Savage accelerated video (onboard) 256Mb of ram and 20G ATA100 HD... >Chuck in a NIC, CDrom & floppy, and you're done. This man speaks wisely. >That as opposed to ten old chuggers drinking electricity and wasting >valuable processor time passing data over the LAN. Not to mention the space >issue and spousal tension as Nic mentioned.. You waste valuable processor time passing data over the LAN if you build a Beowulf. The original Beowulf of 16 486DX4-100's built by NASA required two 10mbps networks to carry the data traffic. If you build a cluster of workstations, however, you can cut the network traffic down to a complete minimum through clever programming. My ray-tracing cluster uses the network only when it begins a frame, and when each workstation finishes it's section of the frame. The network is completely unused while each workstation is working flat out. >Not being rude, but you'd have to be single, and a serious enthusiast to >consider a cluster of old junk a real option. Agreed. Excellent learning experience, though. Wayne
