Servers at work..

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Weenis

I said WEENIS, not...
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Apr 10, 2006
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So I am going to be getting control of up to 8 X5660 machines with 48 gigs of ram apiece.. I am wondering what kind of PPD I can expect from these machines? I may not have them 24/7.. but I will have use of them often.

I ask because I suspect it's going to be a huge PITA to get an internet port opened on firewalls.. So I want to gauge the effort vs reward :)




...and mow some of you down








...for a good cause of course :D
 
single or dual sockets? Also, I'd get it in writing that you can use them since it's not a burn in. Folding is great, but it's not worth losing a job over, especially in this economy.

On that note, damn, wish I could. When I was doing some army training we had dual 5550 rigs. Not much, but back then those were beastly. Of course, they were gov computers so thats a no go. I need to find a better job lol.

ahhh, I miss those days. Workstations with 8 screens a piece. That was a command center lol
 
Fantastic you have this opportunity. First make certain you have authorization from higher ups. If you want to set up -bigadv, it would be much better to have them on 24/7 if at all possible. If not, maybe the standard SMP client might be better suited.

In regards to PPD, that's a good question ~80K perhaps with -bigadv? That is a very rough estimation and the WUs vary a lot depending which you get. I don't have any such systems and could be way off in my estimations but it certainly will be very high when everything is aggregated.
 
I doubt 80k with bigadv. If these are single cpu systems that is. My dual quad 55 series xeons (with HT) get about 75-80k on a good unit, thats no delays and OC'd to 3.9 ghz. Id suggest standard A3's if you cant go 24/7, plus if these are single units then they probly wouldnt meet the deadline at stock clocks. If they are dually's they might but I'd still stick A3's standard.

2.8 Ghz (without turbo) and hex, single rig systems would probly net 20k maybe? It's gonna be hard for me to give you a good guess, I'm too used to OC'd systems. Obviously higher if they are duallys. SO many factors will play in here tho, since there will be down time on the rigs the bonus won't be much help. Then again, if they are dual's you may be able to squeak by with one WU a night. My dually at 3.9 for reference gets between 1:30 to 3:50 TPF's for most standard units, with less of an OC and maybe less cores, one unit a night me be a good option for you. Just some things to consider
 
Vaulter98c said:
I doubt 80k with bigadv. If these are single cpu systems that is. My dual quad 55 series xeons (with HT) get about 75-80k on a good unit, thats no delays and OC'd to 3.9 ghz. Id suggest standard A3's if you cant go 24/7, plus if these are single units then they probly wouldnt meet the deadline at stock clocks. If they are dually's they might but I'd still stick A3's standard.
Click to expand...
True, I made the assumption they're dual-processor systems. I really hope they are 'cause even though they run at stock clocks with 12 cores they should be pretty high up there whatever units they get, and then multiply that by 8 servers... :eek:
 
I think musky posted that his dual x5550 machine was giving 50-60k ppd so given the greater core count but not on the same amount of time i would say about the same.
 
I get to use some of my work hardware for folding and as a liunx shop I don't get -bigadv but that works out when you don't have full time use of the box. I have a HP DL580 G5 at work with 4 2.93 quads (core 2 based) in it and on A3 it cranks about 35K a day. The good news is that is completes every A3 I have seen between 3 and 8 hours so under 16 hour a day usage you will still get multiple bonus achieving postings. With -bigadv you may not make the bonus which would defeat the purpose.

I also have run a DL380 G6 and it has two i7 based based quads running 2.53 and it easily cleared 20 k a day on A3 and it posted wu almost as fast as the DL580 G5 but it didn't get as much bonus. This machine was running vmware ESXi with a VM dedicated for folding and other VM's there to do what it was going to do in the end so before I shipped it I just deleted its folding VM. The bad news (if your virtual which you probably aren't) is I can't pass 12 cores in vmare.

If they are duals and can run 24 hours on the weekends and they are on Windows maybe you can rig it up to run A3 during the week and -bigadv on the weekends. That would most likely yield the best performance.

Also there are more knowledgeable people about this than me but there might be a way to only allow the internet to one machine (possibly even a non folding machine) and have the other ones get wu through that one machine. I know there is a offline method just don't know if it can work on that scale and with scripting. That would assume that you have permission to run the hardware but not open the firewall.
 
Wow, I wasn't far off
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These should be 2.8 GHz with a 2x turbo, so 3.07 GHz. Even as single processor boxen, they should be plenty for bigadv if that is possible.
 
But he won't be able to go 24/7, and they aren't fast enough to do one overnight so he's better off running regular right?
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I would say run regular units.

He would pound out a ton of WU.
 
just so nobody else gets the wrong impression or get some crazy ideas about their workplace...


The boxen I have in my lab at work are mine to do with as I please, some are there to stay some are there for only a short while, either way it's one of the perks in saving a company and their clients more than $10 mil a year in hardware alone, not to mention the huge boost in production across the board since I took over.

so if you have the absolute 100% support from someone with power then go for it. If not, it's not worth losing your job over.
 
Mtnduey said:
just so nobody else gets the wrong impression or get some crazy ideas about their workplace...


The boxen I have in my lab at work are mine to do with as I please, some are there to stay some are there for only a short while, either way it's one of the perks in saving a company and their clients more than $10 mil a year in hardware alone, not to mention the huge boost in production across the board since I took over.

so if you have the absolute 100% support from someone with power then go for it. If not, it's not worth losing your job over.
Click to expand...

Amen to this...I have access to literally hundreds of C2Ds that I have not touched. Employment >> "D"
But, if you have the support, go for it!
 
Well they would be for the most part usable by me 24/7.. but they will be used for performance testing applications and servers when I have to utilize the horsepower for my job :p. I can access shared network space that I can dump files to and fro from my local machine.. so that might be a posability.

I'm pretty sure they aren't dualies because I only saw 12 threads I think.. 3 of the boxes are still being bumped up to the new hardware.. the old ones are just xeon 3ghz machines.

I need to ask management if I can utilize them for folding... I can probably justify folding on them to test their performance :p
 
Hope everything turns out positive and you have access to the equipment. With a single-socket, 12 threads is still substantial and with all servers combined you should see over a 100k PPD even with standard SMP WUs.
 
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