[Beowulf] Help: Raspberry Pi Cluster

[Jörg Saßmannshausen]

Hi Jim,

I think the whole idea about that Pi Cluster was not to build a HPC machine 
but more to demonstrate it can be done and also have students a tinker with 
it. 
The Pi are quite small, so you can do that in a class, without worring you get 
deaf or the AC will not cope with the heat ;-)

It is a nice toy, good for a few things but I doubt it will replace a 'real' 
number crunching cluster.

My 2 dimes before bedtime. 8-)

Jörg


On Freitag 14 Dezember 2012 you wrote:
> What's interesting about this is system is that it is a good illustration
> that there's a lot more expense and hassle than selecting the motherboard.
> 
> While the RPI might only be $35, you also have to buy a SD card ($10-12)
> power supplies, cables, boxes or mounting hardware, not to mention a
> network switch, etc.  When you are looking at rock bottom price points,
> small things like the cost of the plug strip you plug it all into can be a
> significant fraction of the total.  If you're making a cluster out of
> $1000-2000 nodes in a rack, you can ignore things like the network cable
> or power cord cost, because they're in the $1-2 range, but if your
> computer costs $30, then a $1 network cable is a 3% increase in price.
> 
> All of that might actually equal or exceed the cost of the processor.
> 
> You might be better off getting a stack of inexpensive netbooks or low end
> PCs.. A bit of casual googling shows that there are quite a few netbooks
> out there in the under $100 category (odd brands, it is true) (heck, I
> found one place offering refurbished netbooks for $45 each.. )  Move up to
> the $150-200 price range and there's literally hundreds of major brand
> units available.
> 
> Jim Lux
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On
> Behalf Of Jörg Saßmannshausen Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 3:58 PM
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Help: Raspberry Pi Cluster
> 
> Hi Eric,
> 
> already been done in Southampton University:
> 
> http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/features/raspberry_pi_supercompute
> r.shtml
> 
> ;-)
> 
> Note: that is not the cluster called Iridis (also located there) :D
> 
> Jörg
> 
> On Donnerstag 13 Dezember 2012 Lee Eric wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm wondering if it's possible to create a small HPC by using
> > Raspberry Pi computers. It's only a draft idea comes to my mind. So
> > any issues w/ this idea?
> > 
> > Thanks.
> > 
> > Eric
> 
> --
> *************************************************************
> Jörg Saßmannshausen
> University College London
> Department of Chemistry
> Gordon Street
> London
> WC1H 0AJ
> 
> email: j.sassmannshausen at ucl.ac.uk
> web: http://sassy.formativ.net
> 
> Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
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-- 
*************************************************************
Jörg Saßmannshausen
University College London
Department of Chemistry
Gordon Street
London
WC1H 0AJ 

email: j.sassmannshausen at ucl.ac.uk
web: http://sassy.formativ.net

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html