Patrick Project Mini Cluster

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Lost-Benji

Member
Jan 21, 2013
424
23
18
The arse end of the planet
The perfect MB for that project doesn't exist...but if it did it would be something like this:

Mini-ITX
Socket LGA1155 (IB Xeons)
C206 or similar chipset to support ECC
4x DIMM sockets for 32GB
2x X540 LAN (you'll want the option of 10G-baseT for access to SAN)
2x mSATA sockets connected to the SATA-III links of the chipset - boot from mSATA
up to 4 SATA-II connectors exposed as space on MB permits (will probably never be used...)
PCIe socket - at least x8 but x16 if space permits
Support for vPRO/AMT for management
Video out from CPU - nothing fancy, RGB will do - DVI or DP OK too.
At least 3 PWM fan headers
USB-3 MB connector
4x USB-3 exposed on rear IO
Support for VT-x & VT-d

Since you want to mount it in 1U the RAM sockets need to align longways front-to-back for airflow/cooling.

You don't need/want any more bells or whistles...given 6-8 of these and a 12-port 10Gbase-T switch like the new Netgear and you could build a heck of a little compute cluster. Small, reasonable power, reasonable cost.
The closest I seen in a quick look, Intel® Server Board S1200KP



Love the lego cluster.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
I still need to do a little (OK a lot) of work on this but here is the first picture of the 1U short depth "Atom Pi" cluster in a box:


Thus far 1x Intel Atom Centerton based Supermicro SYS-5017A-EF system with a Netgear ProSafe GS105 switch and 2x Raspberry Pi Rev B 512MB cards. In the picture these are vertical but hope to get some anti-static material soon as they should fit horizontally. PCI expansion slot will be used to pass power/ Ethernet into the switch.
 

nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
1,087
131
63
TX
Does that switch support PoE as a source?
I have the Linksys SLM2005 and it supports PoE in which is nice because you dont need a power brick.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
3,184
1,545
113
No PoE on the Netgear GS105 - but its input voltage is 12v. Should be easy enough to mod a power cable that plugs into one of those unused 4-pin Molex from the PSU.

Just based on visuals...I'd get rid of the big-ass spinny disk, move the Pi's over where the disks are sitting and stack up 2 or 3 2.5" disks where you've got the Pi's sitting now. Disks could be SSD, but I'm not thinking you need much speed to feed data to the Pi, so I'd probably just much cheaper and larger laptop spinners.

I've got some 3" SATA cables I could send you to clean it up :)
 
Last edited:

badatSAS

Member
Nov 7, 2012
103
0
16
Boston, MA
I might have an extra roll of Kapton tape in the basement to contribute to the project, will take look later today. The stuff is amazing for when you don't want to hav heat or electricity pass through, and with a silicone adhesive it won't come un-stuck. two strips of that on the bottom of the Raspberry Pis and you're good to go
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
I don't have much PoE equipment sadly.

Interesting factoid - all booted-up including the 7,200rpm spinner 27.2w on the Extech! Not bad at all. Biggest reason I would get rid of the spinner is to reduce the max power consumption by a large factor.

badatSAS - let me know. I also have colored electrical tape. The pi's are not too hot, even overclocked to 800MHz.
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
3,072
973
113
NYC
Electrical tape only if it's colorful. Have some fun dude. So are they independent or is the atom a gateway?
 

Bunker

New Member
Mar 10, 2013
17
0
0
Building something similar.... Have a tight budget... so I bought 10 Hp T5730 thin clients off ebay $20@ shipped (have some ddr2 2GB sodimm laying around) . I will attach these to a rack shelf and mount Gbe switch below them. The master will be a 1u rackable dual opteron 2244HE box. End up most likely around 5U. I might push to see if the T5730 can handle TL-50's $2.80 of ebay shipped.. I have read it will be ok. :).
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Building something similar.... Have a tight budget... so I bought 10 Hp T5730 thin clients off ebay $20@ shipped (have some ddr2 2GB sodimm laying around) . I will attach these to a rack shelf and mount Gbe switch below them. The master will be a 1u rackable dual opteron 2244HE box. End up most likely around 5U. I might push to see if the T5730 can handle TL-50's $2.80 of ebay shipped.. I have read it will be ok. :).
That is a really interesting concept. Makes me want to look at other HP thin clients and see what else is out there for network booting. Here are a few sub $100 ones I saw -

HP T5630w 1GHz VIA Eden $65 - hp T5630w | eBay

HP T5740 Atom N280 (1C/2T) - hp T5740 | eBay

Fairly interesting idea to use these as inexpensive network nodes. Might be interesting to see raspberry pi v. T5740.
 

Biren78

Active Member
Jan 16, 2013
550
94
28
That is a really interesting concept. Makes me want to look at other HP thin clients and see what else is out there for network booting. Here are a few sub $100 ones I saw -

HP T5630w 1GHz VIA Eden $65 - hp T5630w | eBay

HP T5740 Atom N280 (1C/2T) - hp T5740 | eBay

Fairly interesting idea to use these as inexpensive network nodes. Might be interesting to see raspberry pi v. T5740.
If you are going that class of CPU - Wyse XX0C X50C Mobile Thin Client Atom Flash Memory LED Screen Webcam | eBay Slow atom z520 + 1gb ram wifi (n) and comes with a built in kvm.
 

nickscott18

Member
Mar 15, 2013
77
19
8
Another thought for housing it would be in a C6100 motherboard sled. Depending on how hard it would be to tap power from the chassis, you power the Pi's and a switch from the chassis, and just have an Ethernet uplink cable coming out the back. Could be a good option if you already have a C6100 chassis, with a motherboard sled that is not working.
 

Chuckleb

Moderator
Mar 5, 2013
1,017
331
83
Minnesota
We were actually looking at the HDD carrier as an option for switches or RPi and pulling power from the SATA connector for a project.
 

Scout255

Member
Feb 12, 2013
58
0
6
That is a really neat concept, thanks for sharing. Shame you can't have an alternative blade that would allow you to use one of the PCIe slots though.