Renting out idle SR2s?

[may i be worthy]

Here is the problem. Business is slow, which means I have well and truly spent my folding power budget for this year.

I have 3 SR2s sitting mostly idle. This is bugging the hell out of me - 570,000ppd capacity going to waste. Over 150 million points a year. [H] could be doing 4% more PPD.

I want to run the renting idea up the flagpole - where [H] members can pay for power, send me passkey etc then get the points for themselves. It would be in short term bursts depending on weather, my work availability etc etc. I am thinking of small blocks of time like a day or two - maximum a week.

I imagine demand could exceed supply also, so there are issues of fairness and favourites to consider.. Given I have covered the rather large capital costs, I think this is a good deal, even with my power being expensive here - about 30c kwh. (each rig is approx 650watts, including cooling fans). I imagine a lot of people would like to rent for a day or two, just to see the fun of my HFM page showing them 200,000 ppd per rig next to their name.

As a general issue I think [H] should have a system set up so that short term capacity of the [H]orde that is going unused due to whatever reason can be better utilised. This is something that would probably need to go through the FS/FT forum? Or external website/PMs?

So on the one hand, I think more points for [H], and more science is a very good thing, but I want to get some feedback from the team. The downsides I can think of is upsetting people in races - just one of these three machines would get you a top 20 slot, and all three would see you at #3 (used to be number one, sigh.) Folks in #3 to #7 could hit number 1 - which is not an outcome I want, out of respect for the people who have invested a lot to get there.

So the potential for annoying people could be high, if I handle this poorly. Has anyone done this before, and what were your experiences? Cuss and discuss, and I am happy to go with majority opinion.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

maybe do a thread something like i use to do when i would fold for other people.. first come first serve. if the demands high maybe do a person per month per system or something. once you have the person/people for that month lock the thread so it doesn't get flooded with random posts. then reopen it in a week before the next month starts.

 

[musky]

maybe do a thread something like i use to do when i would fold for other people.. first come first serve. if the demands high maybe do a person per month per system or something. once you have the person/people for that month lock the thread so it doesn't get flooded with random posts. then reopen it in a week before the next month starts.

The BIG difference here is that you would just fold for a person for free, monkey. MIBW is looking to rent the SR-2s for the cost of power. What I suspect most people are going to bauk at is that we are talking around $5 per day per machine to power them. I am afraid that most aren't going to want to cough up the money to run them.

Some other potential issues:
- While you can guarentee a bigadv returned in 24 hours, you can't do 2 - how would that work out? 24 hours gets you a unit and a third - what is going to happen with the 2/3 unit still processing when the day is done.

- Lets say you turn a machine on and it picks up 6 regular smp units in a row. Be careful what you are selling here. Unless you cherry-pick units, you can't guarentee any ppd. Short time frames hurt this even more - you can't come close to 200 ppd for one day. You may be able to average that for a week, but even that is a short time frame.

Here is my proposal - run them as [H] community boxen. We are looking at around $140 per machine per month. If there is interest, we take up a collection and run one or more boxen under a generic user name for team 33. If they need to stop folding to do actual work, then the meter starts again after they are back folding.

Thoughts on that one?

 

[Kendrak]

The BIG difference here is that you would just fold for a person for free, monkey. MIBW is looking to rent the SR-2s for the cost of power. What I suspect most people are going to bauk at is that we are talking around $5 per day per machine to power them. I am afraid that most aren't going to want to cough up the money to run them.

Some other potential issues:
- While you can guarentee a bigadv returned in 24 hours, you can't do 2 - how would that work out? 24 hours gets you a unit and a third - what is going to happen with the 2/3 unit still processing when the day is done.

- Lets say you turn a machine on and it picks up 6 regular smp units in a row. Be careful what you are selling here. Unless you cherry-pick units, you can't guarentee any ppd. Short time frames hurt this even more - you can't come close to 200 ppd for one day. You may be able to average that for a week, but even that is a short time frame.

Here is my proposal - run them as [H] community boxen. We are looking at around $140 per machine per month. If there is interest, we take up a collection and run one or more boxen under a generic user name for team 33. If they need to stop folding to do actual work, then the meter starts again after they are back folding.

Thoughts on that one?

I like the OPs idea and this one.

I don't think I would worrie about getting the credit due. I could see the MIBW doing everything possible to be fair if you spent $$ to rent the box.

 

[may i be worthy]

Good points - this is why I posted, to work out the kinks before going live.

Yes I would have to be clear about the machines as being 200,000ppd capable, but we live in Stanfords universe, and murphys law says 6701s and 2684s will happen. My thoughts were that the renter gets what units will fall - just like I would. This is renting the experience and joy of owning and folding SR2s, without the huge capital expense. I would want to be just-in-time booking, so that if someone gets a crap run of units they have the option can keep going until they get some good ones. (I will not be deleting/cherry picking units for anybody) Of course I would cover any losses due to needing machines in a hurry, bad units etc.

While the cost per day is higher than many are used to, the reward is also, so I would be making sure people knew the ppd/watt. I am guessing the appeal of racking up a score quickly has appeal, I also assume it unlikely one renter would want to rent for longer than a week or two. Who knows? If nobody is interested that is fine, at least the offer is out there.

Less than 3% of our team has access to machines like this. I am hoping of the 97% of the rest would like a taste of what that is like, if only for a short time.

Thinking it over a bit more, one day is a useless rental period - I would have to charge pro rata on power - for the time it took for actual work units done. ie - rent for 2 bigadv or max48hrs etc - then work out time and price after the event. Hmmm, clearly the longer the rental the easier to administer.

I am sure the details could be worked out to make sure the renter is happy. What I am concerned about right now is if this is going to piss people in the top 30 off too much.

And lastly, I would be delighted if we could set up a common fund to pool spare [H] resources and make a system of this. I don't care who gets the points. The idea of setting up a communal user eg "ForThe[H]orde" is fine by me.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

"I am sure the details could be worked out to make sure the renter is happy. What I am concerned about right now is if this is going to piss people in the top 30 off too much. "

its called competition.. don't like it then don't pay attention to what place your in.. thats just how it works..

 

[Kendrak]

Why would it tick us off?
If someone wanted a short term bump and wants to have more work done for the [H]?

Fold for the cure!

 

[Patriot]

more D rent away... as far as a general team box... I'll drop $10-15/mo. in the hat... if every in just the top 30 can drop 5 thats one box 10 is 2 etc....

 

[hiodie]

I think its great that you are trying to offer it, but I think if you do anything shorter than a week you're just going to be overwhelmed with trying to keep track of PMs, costs, actual hours used, etc, and it probably wouldn't be worth it for you. Even if you can't afford to keep them on, you need to figure out what value you place on your time to help everyone. If you can do it great, but I think going by a week or longer would be easiest for everyone.

 

[Agent_N]

Folding with an AMD 435 triple core: $70

Folding with an XFX 9800GT: $50

Getting to fold on an SR2 for a day: Priceless

Do you take Paypal?

 

[nalc]

It works out to be about $100 a week in electricity for all three boxen at the full 650w for seven days.

 

[Kendrak]

It works out to be about $100 a week in electricity for all three boxen at the full 650w for seven days.

It would end up being a touch over 4 million points in just a week. Just a bit of a boot there

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Yup, $98.28. Not cheap...

I think the issue is that units don't finish on the hour; so for short periods of time, you will invariably get less than you think you're paying for. However, longer periods are pretty expensive...

 

[csmith811]

It works out to be about $100 for a week in electricity for all three boxen at the full 650w for seven days.

The $100 would out produce in just one day what I have kicked out in 6 months. That's tempting.

I think this is a good idea if you get enough interest. Why not have it folding for the cure than sitting idle? Science = science.

 

[grumpy_rock]

I like the idea. I cannot afford the hardware or the electricity cost to run my own dedicated SR2 folding rig 24x7. I would jump at the chance to get a quick bump.

 

[gkanakis]

about 30c kwh

WOW, I thought .18 KWH was high!

Are you sure its .30 cents?
It was only .14 cent in November 2007.
That's one hell of a jump!

 

[Nathan_P]

I'm with musky on this one - love the idea but i think us all chipping in and getting them to fold under a community name would be easier for MIBW to manage

 

[jebo_4jc]

go for it. Work out the details with your renter. I might be interested in a short burst, but it would be hard for me to stomach paying 6X more per kwh than I do at home....

 

[FLECOM]

Maybe you should sell them to someone with cheaper power?

seriously 30c/Kwh is insane... we pay like half that down here with FP&L

 

[jebo_4jc]

Maybe you should sell them to someone with cheaper power?

seriously 30c/Kwh is insane... we pay like half that down here with FP&L

right. If we really want to get serious about the [H] rental program, we could ship unused hardware to the folder with the cheapest power. I think I pay around 5.5 cents. zero2dash is right down the road as well.

 

[Zink]

The only problem is MIBW uses his for work so the only way to run them is at $0.30/kwh. I think it is probably worth it for folks, start with renting and see how it goes. You can always subsidize the price in the name of science or set a group pool if that doesn't work out. One week minimum rental seems fair. You could also do one week, one machine for $30 and change the usernames all at the same time every weekend.

 

[amdgamer]

right. If we really want to get serious about the [H] rental program, we could ship unused hardware to the folder with the cheapest power. I think I pay around 5.5 cents. zero2dash is right down the road as well.

Damn man.......

I only live 5 hours away from you and my rates are 14 cents/kwh.

I thought that was expensive, because 30 cents is starting to get up in the territory of what some European and Scandinavian countries pay.

 

[gkanakis]

Maybe you should sell them to someone with cheaper power?

I think he still uses them for his rendering business.

because 30 cents is starting to get up in the territory of what some European and Scandinavian countries pay.

Remember he lives in Australia.

 

[Zero82z]

Some other potential issues:
- While you can guarentee a bigadv returned in 24 hours, you can't do 2 - how would that work out? 24 hours gets you a unit and a third - what is going to happen with the 2/3 unit still processing when the day is done.

You could charge per work unit completed instead. That would solve this problem.

 

[Nathan_P]

You could charge per work unit completed instead. That would solve this problem.

Genius if he goes down this route, MIBW can either bill at the end of the WU or just generate an average rate per WU. Still prefer the community boxen idea though

 

[jebo_4jc]

You could charge per work unit completed instead. That would solve this problem.

Right. Even better would be to charge per point of credit given for a WU.

It might be difficult for MIBW to keep track of that though.

 

[Zero82z]

Right. Even better would be to charge per point of credit given for a WU.

That wouldn't work if he's charging based on power consumption, because the price per point would change depending on the work unit. Charging per unit would allow him to work out how the cost in electricity for each type of unit and then charge based on that.

 

[jebo_4jc]

That wouldn't work if he's charging based on power consumption, because the price per point would change depending on the work unit. Charging per unit would allow him to work out how the cost in electricity for each type of unit and then charge based on that.

agreed. However that doesn't allow for variations in PPD. Not all WUs from a given project are equal. Charging for credit given would also allow for downtime. If a rig goes down temporarily the credit for a WU drops considerably.

Your method is probably good enough, however. Charge something like $5 for a fast bigadv WU, $3 for a 2684 or fast standard WU like a 6025, or $2 for a 670x.

 

[DeFex]

5.1 cents off peak here, and 9.9 cents on peak, i doubt i would fold at all for 30c

 

[_r2h]

Dang, 30c KWH. Believe mine is around 10.5c KWH.

 

[amdgamer]

5.1 cents off peak here, and 9.9 cents on peak, i doubt i would fold at all for 30c

If electric rates continue to go up here in the US as they are projected, it is definately going to affect our folding and other DC hobbies. I think this is a lesson for potential new addicts that your electric bill is something that you must consider when looking to bring new folding hardware online. It is kind of like the person who goes out and gets a big v8 powered SUV and then runs around with $4 worth of gas all the time because they can't fill the beast up.

I honestly like the per work unit charge a lot better and vote for that. It just makes everything so simple since we'll know for the log file how long it took to keep it running. I'm hoping things pick up for MIBW soon so that he can get back to putting those beasts online

 

[86 5.0L]

I wouldnt mind renting out my rig, or taking on anybody elses spare hardware, free electricity FTW!

 

[Mtnduey]

renting it out for the cost of electricity alone would be a pretty sweet deal IMO, having some experience with SAAS and other On Demand type of products, pay for use is always worlds more expensive than the cost of utilities.

Shame there isnt a way to rent your farm in the lean months to other folks who do your type of work but maybe dont have the CPU power to do it themselves. I wonder if Amazon computing would buy your cpu cycles

 

[Patriot]

on the community boxen idea...
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1595134

This neither confirms nor denies MIBW agreeing with the idea... merely of community interest...

 

[may i be worthy]

Thanks everyone for PMs - will get to them - first working out the system...

Thanks everyone for the input and suggestions. I think the thing to do is get some experience renting them out to one brave guinea pig and see what works and what doesn't. Then plan B can be to move on to more community renting. I imagine that co-ordinating with several people might take a while and there is nice cool folding weather from tomorrow. Itch itch...

@hiodie - Yes, I can see how the admin could get old quickly. But I do want to keep them folding when possible, so I have to think about this a bit differently to how I charge my time for my business. We will see.

agreed. However that doesn't allow for variations in PPD. Not all WUs from a given project are equal. Charging for credit given would also allow for downtime. If a rig goes down temporarily the credit for a WU drops considerably.

Your method is probably good enough, however. Charge something like $5 for a fast bigadv WU, $3 for a 2684 or fast standard WU like a 6025, or $2 for a 670x.

Those rates are roughly proportional to PPD, but not the time taken to run the unit - at those rates I can run 14 SMP units in 24 hours costing $43, for 90,000 points, whereas one 17 hour p6901 costing $5 but delivering 136,000 points. (see below.)

With PPD all over the place, and unpredictable units with Linux, setting rates based on WU is problematic. It creates winners and losers. I am strongly of the view that you are renting the experience of what I get - with all the ups and (most of the) downs that folding for Stanford entails. (I would pay for failed units)

I think I should charge for power, as close to what happened as is easily calculated, rounding up a smidge so I am not out of pocket, and I would donate my time and depreciation on the rigs, which is no small thing. I hope people would regard that as a great deal. (if this was a money making exercise it would be 3x to 5x the rates)

I think I will be charging rates based on a commitment of up to 7 days, with an adjustment at the end depending on when the units actually ended. So it might end up being stopped @ 6.5 days. = pay for 6.5 days power) Up to the renter how we cap it. Now depending on my availability and shutting down on hot days (Summer is over, but still) that might take 8 or 9 days to deliver 7 days worth of folding.

FYI - SR2#2 and #3 - Linux renderfarms with tear's affinity wrapper estimates.

6901 - 16-17hrs. - approx 200,000 ppd (benched)
2685 - 17-18hrs. - approx 180,000 ppd extrapolated (not had any yet)
2684 - 22-23hrs. - approx 120,000 ppd extrapolated
smp - 1.7 hrs - approx 93,000 ppd (benched)
6701 - 4.5 hrs - approx 57,000 ppd (benched)

It is pretty straightforward for the 2 renderfarm rigs. It gets complicated for my main workstation SR2#1, which I will be using during the day. (running windows, so 156,000 ppd max) For most work days it would mean 90 to 98% of the CPU cycles can go to background folding. Obviously that one needs some special discounting depending on how much it is in use. Whatever I do, it will be reasonable.

I have my HFM spit a html to dropbox, so anyone can always see what is going on anyway.

That raises another point - forget about sneaky ambushes of your favourite nemesis - my HFM will always be public.

5.1 cents off peak here, and 9.9 cents on peak, i doubt i would fold at all for 30c

But up to 340 ppd per watt makes up for a lot of that. It is not for everyone, but based on responses so far it looks like there is interest. If you can do up to 47,000 points per dollar, or drop 3 to 3.8 million a week then you don't need me.

The whole point of renting anything is that you can do short term stuff without a big up front outlay. Anyone with cheap power is already more than welcome to buy 3 SR2s. But I can't help but notice that out of our team of 1000 active folders only a few people have done that

Power has shot up dramatically here, with more to come. Because of underinvestment in the power industry here, we are looking at doubling of prices in the next 5 years, and that is before a proposed carbon tax. (we have huge coal reserves = cheap coal, but small and spread out population, )

Hmmm, I also have to think about payment options - USD to AUD, paypal etc. Is paypal good for small payments?

And what is within the [H] forum rules? Do I just hang up a shingle that says PM me? Or does this have to be totally off site?

And can you change passkey mid unit these days?

 

[may i be worthy]

Ok, I think I have enough to do a trial. i will offer slots to the 3 people who have already PM'ed me, in order of contact. (hoping that is within the rules).

I have kicked of one bigadv on each rig, as a last run under my name - but mainly because I realise I have not actually run a live unit with Tears wrapper and I really should not go live without a test first. So we have about 12 hrs to deal with PMs...

 

[nitrobass24]

MIBW

Ever though about colocation for those things? I mean for $400/mo i think you could throw those in a DC down there.

 

[may i be worthy]

MIBW

Ever though about colocation for those things? I mean for $400/mo i think you could throw those in a DC down there.

When I am rendering we sometimes use bucket rendering - all 36 cores working on one frame. Plus rendered frames too large to do remotely. Internet not fast enough to do that practically here.

And nobody takes my babies away from me.

Bedtime...

 

[may i be worthy]

Trial underway.

grumpy_rock was kind enough to kick this off, let's see what happens.

Hmmm, I hope that 2684 speeds up, (had to reboot to fix network error during first frame) it is not scaling as well as I had hoped.

HFM live: http://goo.gl/rlTgb

 

[jebo_4jc]

Cool!