[Bioclusters] (no subject)

[Philip MacMenamin]

On Monday 29 March 2004 05:38 am, you wrote:
> hello all,
>
> i'm interested to the constructiong of a linux cluster of computer for
> bioinformatics purpose. but i dont have a cluu about the performans it
> should have. is there any one who can give any suggestion?
>
> in  the hope of an answer
>
Its kind of a nebulous question.

Basically... buy Xeon || AMD two way boxes. Be boring, look at Dell or 
penguin computing or something. Dont bother with 64 bit. Think about that in 
about 2 years time. It will irritate you in 2 months after you buy it, *i 
promise*. 

Dont buy from some indy very cheap manufacturer, cause, if the nodes will 
fail, you will be left waiting... or make them give you a decent guarantee. 
Or a big box of bits.

Look at the price of the chip : speed ratio. This graph will have an 
inflection point, at which more money input gives diminishing returns 
speed-wise. Buy at this inflection point. This changes all the time... of 
course. There is no point in buying the *best* out there right this second. 
Just buy a little behind it, and buy an extra box or two.  

Find out what you want to run. 
Buy as enough memory so it doesn't thrash your disks. (Or just fill it with 
memory). 

Spending about 2 grand (USD) on them a piece (I dont know what that is in 
Lira) should buy you something decent operating at 3 gigs, with a couple of 
gigs ram. 

Then have a look at 
http://bioinformatics.org/biobrew/
www.rocksclusters.org/

Sorry if this is very uninspiring/boring advice... its just, you want to keep 
everything as simple as you can. There will be tricky bits no matter how 
simple you make everything.
Good luck.
Philip.