[geeks] Inventories and Wish Lists (again)

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2002 at 08:10:59PM +0100, Chris Byrne wrote:
> Ahhh I hadnt put the SAN in for that or software. If we're talking
> fiberchannel then even the smallest SAN on well used gear is going to blow
> through 10 grand in a second and realistically I cant see one for less than
> 20 unless you get your stuff at a bankruptcy auction. And software costs...
> those could be infinite. I was just talking about the machines themselves.
> 
> I figure you can get a reasonable render farm going with a bunch of SS10,
> SS20, or maybe U1's or even with the intel based solutions for not very much
> cash for the machines themselves. I knew of a liquidator who had something
> like 100 U1-170Es and 200s with 128-512m each pulled form a telco, all
> working but in generally cruddy shape, all with ethernet and FDDI. He was
> willing to let them go as a lot for ?10k, or for ?200-300 each.  Software is
> another matter entirely though as is the networking required to hook them
> all together.

Tell me about it.  I keep going back and forth about writing my own ray tracer
to really put a stake in the worst of the software cost problem.  But, it
takes a lot of time and work.  I've figured out most of the details, but 
the best way to deal with textures and the displacement mapping thing still
exscape me.  I've started a design document for it so that I don't forget what
I figure out about how it should workd.

As to SAN, one possibility that might work would be a Sun with both GigE for
the Macs, and Hippi for the Octane, Crays, and Onyx that I forgot to put on
the list.  Going this route, the SAN isn't as elegent, but it might be 
affordable.  I figure a minimum of 10 Fastwide or better scsi chanels would
be needed., that number could by cut down if FC-AL was used (attached directly
to the server, not full fabric SAN FC-AL) and I have no idea what hippi cards 
cost.

My initial goal is one good mac and one good SGI, and some adequate way
of connecting the two to use shared disks.  This goal is long way off.


-- 
Joshua D. Boyd