1U Rackmount Folding Question

[lelliott731]

Has anyone gotten either a single socket or dual socket system to run F@H successfully in a 1U Server case? I am starting to run out of room in my home, and I am going to start to need to consolidate the boxen into just one room, but there is a bed in that room, which needs to stay there, so I basically have one table that will be for just plain CPU boxen, and another desk that will be for CPU/GPU boxen, and I want to know if it's possible to shrink all my boxen down to 1U's so I can stack them easily & get the most amount of horsepower in the smallest amount of space.

 

[AMD_Gamer]

what do you mean shrink everything down to 1U?

i have my IBM Eserver 325 dual opteron running without a problem

 

[lelliott731]

Ok, so heat isn't a problem?

 

[MixManSC]

what do you mean shrink everything down to 1U?

i have my IBM Eserver 325 dual opteron running without a problem

^^ Same here....

I'm sure there are some barebone 1U server cases out there though.

 

[lelliott731]

What I meant by shrink everything down was, if 1U's work for F@H, I would move all my computers that are in desktop boxes, into 1U rackmount cases so that they take up less room.

 

[lelliott731]

Yeah, I was just checking out SuperMicro, they have a ton of cheap Barebones 1U single socket, dual single socket, dual socket, and dual dual socket systems. Very interesting. They claim that the dual computers in a 1U case running off the single power supply give you the best power utilization. Maybe one day I'll have enough $ to try that

 

[tkam]

One thing to consider about going the 1U route is how loud they are. Since they can't use larger fans they use very small ones spinning @ 10k+ rpm and sound like a small plane taking off .

 

[lelliott731]

Oh, didn't know that, thanks tkam!!!

 

[natermeister]

The biggest problem with 1Us are the expansion cards. You've got room for one, single slot card with a riser card.

I don't think that heat will be a problem. Most 1U boxes have some serious fast spinning fans in them that generate a lot of airflow (and a lot of noise along with it). For CPU clients, I think that you'll be ok with 1U. Still, I think 2U might be a lot easier since you can find 2U cases that can accept standard ATX power supplies. That is a huge advantage in my opinion.

For GPU boxes...you'd probably be ok running a single GPU in a 2U box provided that it got good airflow. Perhaps 3U or 4U cases would be better for GPU folding. The one thing you really have to worry about is that these cases are optimized for cooling performance first and quietness dead last. You should be fine if you put them in your basement or another relatively unused room.

I've thought about doing 2Us for my in-progress Folding farm, but for the moment the need for space does not outweigh the cost.

 

[tkam]

4U cases are just towers laid flat on their side

 

[Xilikon]

You should not be looking at fitting into 1U rackmounts but instead, think how you can create a dedicated small room with a way to exhaust hot air. With this out of the way, you can put all the boxens in that small room (with a dedicated outled) and be done.

This is one of the headaches of having a big farm Me, Sunin and a few others know about that (Sunin would be worst since he live in a 600sqft condo). I live myself in a 1100sqft condo and while there is plenty of room to put computers, cramming everything in a single room doesn't work for me .