On Jan 12, 2005, at 07:42 pm, Aaron Fothergill wrote:
very true. Although when my Mac mini arrives I may have to consider selling my space hog of a Cube.
On the clustering point, the mini should be ideal for XCode and Cinema4D users who can use it as a cheap network node to increase their compile/render speeds. Logic Pro can use it as a network node too, although Logic recommends using gigabit ethernet, we've used 100 base ethernet with a Powerbook G4 hooked up to take some of the load off a G5 and it's pretty effective.
I did a rough guestimate that a 3000 box Mac mini cluster would come in at under $1.5 million ( < 1/3rd the cost of Big Mac) but with the lack of gigabit ethernet and being a G4 rather than a G5, I wouldn't expect it to be faster than a tenth of the speed. However, even at 1/10th the speed of Big Mac, it would still get in the top 250 supercomputers on the list, it would be a *lot* smaller, cooling would be easier as you could stash the power supplies away from the CPUs for easierheat transmission and you wouldn't have a cupboard full of keyboards and mice at the end of the build ;) For a small university or college that needs a bit of supercomputer power but doesn't have the funding for a 'proper' one, it might be worth experimenting with a stack of a few hundred Mac minis!
From the cluster farm point of view there are a number of bones of contention. One is it as far as i know uses a 2.5" laotop style hard disk and they are not designed for 24/7 running. Failures of hard disks would cripple the machines also as they have no redundancy (at least in an XServe you have 3 hard drives to fall back on). Also the reason cluster server units are expensive is not only the power but also they are deliberately over-engineered ( and no I'm not talking being built out of 5mm angle iron here - I meant the boards and components ;o) ) to offer maximum robustness when running under constant stress. I can say though that the CD/DVD drive will be fine as it's the same unit used in the XServer G5 :o)
It's a cool idea but I think realistically it would not be able to run allways on for many months, maybe you could run it during the day and sleep it at night?!
-- Mark Benson
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