Calm Down

[Big_Spark]

Super, I am certainly not trying to discourage you, quite the opposite, and I am certainly no being ripped off either. I have been involved in the internet since 1992, and using BB's since 1994. I used to write articles for one of the first PC magazines, if not the first, in the UK.

I have been heavily involved in the creation of a number of sites, some of them having taffic through-put even corporate sites can only dream of.

So far I have not revealed here or elswhere one of my pet projects, as it is not relevent, but here is a picture of a room in my home..it is a very small part of my SETI farm.... In total it comprises of 56 machines, only 5 in cases, the rest all headless networked and running W2K Pro and SETI Driver, nothing else.


Picture is a gif as the jpg would not show for some reason.

 

[supersparks]

knew there was something odd about such a large connection lol!
looks impressive! like the extractor lol, and the SETI programme? i did a few weeks of that a few years ago...used to slow the computer way too much- till i got this computer
you have any idea how much a T3 line is? i might tell a v rich person i know that i will do all his landlord maintenance for free if he gets me one....
never know-

56computers though...bet that costs a bit to run!

its a bit like david and goliath- you massive connection - me some piddaly little thing- but will we both suceed? time will tell...
until i fail

lol

ss

 

[pipme]

Wondered about that 'extractor' for the computer room.

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence ... sounds interesting, if I have the correct SETI. Which I think I have.

Do not know whether to hope there is, and we could recognise it ...

Good luck.

P

 

[AdamW]

FWL, that is insane! Have you considered building your SETI farm into a Beowulf cluster? OK, it means you end up having to run Linux but it wins extra bragging points in a conversation with a computing enthusiast.

How long does it take each node to process a seti unit? What about the net effect, how many units per day? My old PC (A P2 450MHz) took about a day of solid processing to do a single unit. My new PC takes around 4 hours whilst I am using it, but my record is 2.5 hours!

Now, in terms of that leased line Supersparks wants: if you live a mile from the exchange (wired distance of course!) then you are not limited to the 512/256 adsl offerings. There are UK ISPs offering 1024/512 services and I believe there is even one offering up to 4mbit/768 now. 768kbps is the limit on the upstream bandwidth of domestic adsl systems so I don't know if this would be any good for you. Expensive experiment if it isn't!

I have no idea what a T1/T3 would cost, but the fact that they are intended for commercial use and companies who supply them don't list the cost on their websites suggests a LOT of money. Several £K's per year.

Now, what you could try is one of those webhosting companies. Not one of those lame ones where you need advertisements everywhere, but one where you have it how you want because you pay them. This is probably the most cost effective option if you are desperate for more site bandwidth and reliability.

 

[AdamW]

you have any idea how much a T3 line is?

this reckons £850 a month for a 2mb.

If I recall an OC3 (155mps) costs around £4K a month, so a T3 (45mbps) falls somewhere in between these two figures!

 

[supersparks]

how much fun could i have with an oc3?
might get one, just to see if people complain of the site lagging

erm...hmmm...youve given me ideas now
you think i could get an ocr here? lol

 

[supersparks]

na actuly, ill go higher, whats the pricing plan for a oc-768 connection!
decided that oc3 is rubbish- so last week!

 

[Big_Spark]

Well it's all been tidied up since that picture was taken, and the air-con and air extracts have been mounted in the roof space with grills in the ceiling, so those basty looking white flexi-hoses have gone, the seconf 24-way 10/100 switch that is in the picture is now fully populated.

Adam, regarding the Beowulf Idea, I have played about with it, a couple of years back, I even got a dedicated Unix based OS from UCLA Berkeley to create a Beowulf, the OS was written specifically for this purpose, but it took up to much time to learn all about it, I did not have the time to commit to it then, and I certainly don't now.

Regarding speed, most complete units in about 3.5 hrs, although it does vary a little. The laptop is the fastest as it crunches a unit in about 2.05 hrs.

The make of the farm is.

20 of AMD Barton XP2500 (running as XP3200) on Abit NF7 Mobo's with 256MB DDR333

20 of AMD Barton XP2200 (running as XP2500) on Abit NF7 Mobo's with 256MB DDR333

6 of Intel P4C 2.8 running at 3.36GHz on Asus P4P800 Mobo's with 256MB DDR400

2 of Intel P4B 2.8 running at 3.06GHz on Asus P4P800VM Mobo's with 256MB DDR400

2 of Intel P4C 2.4GHz on Asus P4P800VN Mobo's with 256MB DDR400

3 of AMD Duron "Spitfire" XP1800 running at 2.23GHz on Abit NF7-S Mobo with 256MB DDR400

1 of Dual Intel P3 1.5GHz Tualatin (512K Cache) on Intel Server works 845G Server Board with 1024MB PC133 ECC

1 of Dual Intel P4 2.8 Xeon 1MB Cache on Supermicro X5DMS-8GM Server board with 2GB DDR333 ECC

Rock Pegasus 1.6GHz Pentium M (Centrino) Laptop c/w 1024 MB DDR2700

The last of the two duallie's, the Xeon unit, is the server for the whole network and the farm as it has SETI Queue installed on it. There is one machine not on the list which does crunch SETI units, but it's primary role is as the hardward network firewall and sits between the ADSL router and the network, this machine is a dual P3 850 Tualatin with 1024MB ECC PC133.

You may have gathered that I enjoy taking part

 

[AdamW]

That is pretty insane!

You use a separate pc as a firewall between your router and your network? That must keep it pretty safe but configuring ports must be a bit time consuming.

I am afraid my network is not so complete as yours, but I do have one of these sitting on my network. When people are told what it is they generally think they have misunderstood but no, it is a networked DVD player. Great stuff!

I do have a 24 port switch as well but it is lying redundant: it is a rack-mount one so is far too loud and I replaced it with an 8 port mini-switch which is large enough for my current needs.

When I move to a bigger place I plan on installing gigabit ethernet rather than going the fully wireless route. OK, so I do very little that would make use of the speed but according to the score sheet you get 100 points for a Beowulf and 120 points for gigabit networking

 

[AdamW]

Just a thought: why not duct the air away from your server room and use it as blown-air heating? There are a good few kilowatts of heat there, make the most of it!

 

[Big_Spark]

Just a thought: why not duct the air away from your server room and use it as blown-air heating? There are a good few kilowatts of heat there, make the most of it!

Been there, installed that. I have an actuated vent installed in the output line, if the air temperature in the upstairs hallway drops below 18C, then warm air is vented into the two remaining bedrooms and the hallway. The radiator are off and have been all winter.

I had considered ducting it downstairs too, but I have not yet figured out a way to do it and it still look tasteful ..bear in mind this is a 253 years old grade II listed cottage, so no ductwork is allowed externally and I am very limited as to what i can do inside too.

I always use switches rather than hubs, far superior and you get better network traffic and less lost connections...in fact none

Ports are not a problem, everything is labelled anyway, but the firewall machine is also a DHCP server so it allocates IP addresses across the network for me, so all that manual configuration and all the associated messing about.

You don't by a Dog then howl at the moon yourself...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

1) if need be i have the fastest computer on the market to run it on- as a last resort

You've got one of these??

Blimey!

Also, I thought people might be interested to see you and a couple of mates working on your CU:

Where's the meter?

 

[supersparks]

BAS!! how the eck did you get them outta my portfolio!!!???

lol, na i said computer- as in domestic-and at 3k i would hopw it woud be good

ss

 

[masona]

Ban, what you got to remember is, the property is 253 years old grade II listed cottage and that's the only way FWL can get round the building regs is by using the Ikea shelving unit

 

[Big_Spark]

Ban, what you got to remember is, the property is 253 years old grade II listed cottage and that's the only way FWL can get round the building regs is by using the Ikea shelving unit

EXCUSE me Mr Masona Sir, please don't swear in my direction...Ikea indeed...watch it son, you'll curdle my cocoa