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13€ Recycled 20 cores Homemade Cluster
Why?
On January, I wrote a post with a comparation of different ways to build a cluster to play at home.
The conclusion was not clear, but Pine64 was the winner.
This summer, when I was on holidays, I realized the amount of old hardware that I have stored in the basement. So I decided to add this software to my homemade cluster.
The adventage of this old hardware respect to the Pine64 one is:
- More memory per thread.
- More and faster storage.
Pictures.
Specifications.
All of them with Ubuntu Server 17.04 (Zesty)
Cluster Specs
| Motherboard | CPU | RAM | Storage | Ethernet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS P5K SE | Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz | DDR2 7GiB | Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN1 1TB | Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet |
| EliteGroup G31T-M2 | DDR2 4GiB | SATA 3 Gb/s Western Digital 1TB | RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller | |
| ASUS P5N73-AM | Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz | DDR2 4GiB | SATA 3 Gb/s 600GB Software RAID 0 of: Seagate ST3320613AS 320GB -Segate ST3160215AS 160GB -Segate ST3160815AS 160GB | RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller |
| HP Pavilion dv6 | Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q720 @ 1.60GHz with Hyper-Threading | DDR3 4GiB | Hitachi HTS72505 500GB | RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller |
| 16 Cores / 20 threads | 19GB | 2.6TB |
By the way.
Also, I found an old PCI USB 2.0 HUB. It is not good for data transfer, but what about power supply?
So I added this card to one of the server and I can use it as a power supplier for the Pine64 cluster.
Expenses.
I needed to buy few things:
| Shelf Shoe Storage Rack (Sales in Argos) to collocate all the hardware | 2x | 4.99€ |
| PCI Express Ethernet because one of the motherboard comes with a 100Mbps port | 1x | 7.95€ |
| Total | 12.64€ |
It was not necessary, but I also bought:
| D-Link GO-SW-16G - Switch 16p Gigabit so I can replace my two smalls switch | 1x | 43.22€ |
| Electric air duster to clean 10 years old dust from the compenents | 1x | 27.98€ |
| Total of extra unnecessary money | 71.2€ |
To the bin.
In the process, few of the components failed or was not used:
- The original RAID used 4 drives, but one of then had problems. It was a 250GB Seagate ST3250310AS
- A DDR2 module of 2GiB was died, so I replaced it with a old 1GiB module. I know that mix memory types it is not for a dual channer memory architecture, but It is what I have.
- All CPU towers. The old hardware was stored with the case tower. I removed all necessary components and discarded the tower.
- After install a Asus M2N-MX SE Plus with an AMD Atlhlon 64 and small cooler. The combination was so noisy and the CPU only contributes with two really slow cores, that I decided remove it from the cluster.
Remain.
Few point to keep in mind the next time that I will do it (maybe in 10 years):
- Check all HDs before to use it.
- Check all memories modules before to use it.
- Check the pendrive with the OS image before to start to install.
- There are things too old to be reused. I’m sorry little noisy AMD Atlhlon 64