how to use mapped network drive with folding?

B

Bill Clo

Gawd
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Jan 24, 2002
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I saw mention awhile back that some people use a mapped network drive for multiple folding boxes, and am wondering how to set it up? I recall that while each box still needed a hard drive, that it could be set under power management to shut down after x amount of time, and that the folding program would use the network drive to save results, etc.

How do I set this up, or am I misremembering the whole thing?
 
You can make a share on an always-on box; call it "fold" or something. Then make the clients a folder each, and have them mount the share on startup. They can start their folding from \\server\fold\clientfolder, and use the -local flag. Then you can drag all the client folders into EM3 and monitor away.
 
I'm a real noob about networking. What is mounting a share on startup? I need a step by step procedure...basically I need a walkthrough.

Googling it didn't produce much, nor did a search here.

Thanks.
 
What OS is this on? It's more or less the same on all Windowses:
Open My computer window
Tools->Map network Drive
Check the box that says "mount every time" or whatever
enter \\server\share and pick a drive letter.
type username/password if needed, check "remember" if available.

If this isn't clear enough, I can actually go through the steps instead of half-remembering them. I'm not on Windows, but I can do it on one of rj's machines.
 
You can do like mage said and use the "Reconnect at logon" or you can use a batch file and use the net use command and have this run on startup, just and ex:

Code: 
net use e: \\box\share

 
I'm using WinXP Pro. I have some questions though. Is each folding instance put onto the hard drive of it's respective system, and then upon startup, loads from the mapped drive? Or am I misunderstanding it?

Or is it like this: install FAH on a seperate folder on the mapped drive, and each system that is using the mapped drive loads FAH from it's respective assigned folder?

I see where one assigns the drive letter, etc. What gets me is \\share\fold\name, etc.
 
It's more the second. It'll have the executable, the work unit, all that on the network drive.

What happens is you mount \\server\fold to a drive, say Z:. Then you set up something that makes the machine run Z:\myfoldingdir\FAH500-Console.exe -local -forceasm -whatever on startup. The -local is so that it won't store stuff in the registry. It's probably not necessary, but won't hurt.
 
Expanding on the idea mage presented, here is an example:

You have 1 PC called Bob and 5 other PCs you want to connect to it to fold.

You create 5 folders on Bob called something like F@H1, F@H2, etc.

Share each of the 5 folders and pick a share name that reflects they are unique, if you go with F@H1, etc, the folder name will also carry to the share name.

This is where you get the \\server\sharename information, the server is Bob (\\bob) and the share name would for instance be F@H1 (\F@H1). Combine the two and you get the share as \\Bob\F@H1.

If you want to do this in a batch file format, you would create a file as such:

Code: 
net use e: \\Bob\F@H1
e:\
FAH502-Console.exe -local -whatever

This will cause the folding client to work out of the mapped e: drive on Bob and all the information and files will reside on Bob, but the processing will run on the extended boxen.

It will cause a dos window to be running at all times the client is, but if they are folding only it would probably be easiest. That code will go into a .bat file and you can place it in the startup folder of each of the extension boxen. All you would have to do is change which share they would connect to.

 
Remember - Since you are using Windoze you are limited to 8 instances per OS install due to the registry entry. So if you are running an HT enabled P4 (2 instances) you can only mount 6 more, if you've got a duallie HT (4 instances) you can only mount 4 more instances.
And if you are EXTREMELY lucky to get a Dual processor, dual core, HT enabled server - your MAXED OUT (drool)!!

 
Got it to work. Thanks alot guys. Now to get the other systems set up the same way. Even if saves only 10watts per system, it adds up.

The trick was actually getting the power management to kick in and power down the hard drive. Some application kept accessing the drive. I think I found it, as it does power down after 3 mins now. I also had to set the checkpoint time to max.
 
Bill Clo said:
The trick was actually getting the power management to kick in and power down the hard drive. Some application kept accessing the drive. I think I found it, as it does power down after 3 mins now. I also had to set the checkpoint time to max.
Click to expand...
Funny anecdote about that - I once had a system that I wanted to be really quiet, so I decided to have the hard drive spin down after 50 seconds. So I set it for that, and 50 seconds later it spun down and back up immediately. I was confused - didn't I set it to just spin down? I checked the setting, and it was indeed set to spin down every 50 seconds. I let it sit, and the same thing happened.

I eventually tracked it down - some application was accessing the disk every 60 seconds to write its log file out. So it would spin down, and as soon as it was done the application would ask to write again and the OS would dutifully spin the disk back up.

Moral of the story is buy solid state storage. :rolleyes: Or maybe lottery tickets so you can afford it.
 
Unhappy Mage,

As much as I found your fold server very interesting, I think this mapped disk setup will serve me better, as it's alot easier to set up, and it saves the same amount of power. I always have some old hard drives laying around, so each box needing a hard drive is not a problem. I usually get them free, or really cheap. :)
 
Yep, that's true. As long as the hard drives are off, they're not drawing power. Fold-server is for those who can't afford Windows licenses for their farm. Like Marty9876 with his whole collection of crappers. And me with no budget at all. ;)
 
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