Animux Caseless "Ikea" Rackmount Renderfarm
From Animuxwiki
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Goals: | Goals: | ||
| - | *Using items for the rackmount that you could find in "Ikea", "home depot" or any neighbourhood hardware store. | + | *EASILY AVAILABLE COMPONENTS: Using items for the rackmount that you could find in "Ikea", "home depot" or any neighbourhood hardware store. |
| - | *Preparing the rackmount should not need any fancy tools but just regular household hardware tools. | + | *EASY TO MAKE: Preparing the rackmount should not need any fancy tools but just regular household hardware tools. |
| - | * | + | *PORTABLE: Easy to move around the studio or ship to a different location. |
| - | *Easy to upgrade, maintain. (Each node can be fixed without having to bring down the entire rackmount) | + | *UPGRADABLE: Easy to upgrade, maintain. (Each node can be fixed without having to bring down the entire rackmount, if possible right on the rack itself.) |
| - | *Easy to | + | *EXPANDABLE: Easy to scale-up or scale-out. With ease to upgrade the components in each rack it easily scales-up. It is easy to add more shelves (racks) with 2 nodes, it is equally easy to scale-out. |
| - | * | + | *EFFICIENT USE OF SPACE: Safely pack as many nodes as possible in a given space. |
| - | * | + | *EFFICIENT USE OF ENERGY: Minimize the use of chasis fans to the bare minimum - CPU, PSU, Videocards. (Another benefit, reduces noise) |
| - | *Should be functional, stable and | + | *Should be functional, stable |
| + | *Render animations jobs. | ||
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| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | Hardware Specifications: | ||
| + | |||
| + | *12 AMD Motherboards | ||
| + | *12 Quad-core Phenoms | ||
| + | *26x2GB (52GB RAM) | ||
| + | *5 NVidia Quadro Video Cards for GPU based rendering (Gelato renderer) | ||
| + | *10 NVidia video cards for GPU rendering and display | ||
| + | *1 TB of HDD for NFS mount (can be easily expanded) | ||
| + | *12 PSU (support GPU) | ||
| + | *12 ATX Power switches | ||
| + | *1 KVM Switch | ||
| + | *16 Port Gigabit Switch | ||
| + | *6 USB Mini Hubs | ||
| + | *12 4GB USB Drives with Animux OS | ||
| + | *12 Low Profile kit | ||
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| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | Rack Specification | ||
| + | |||
| + | *Ikea 6 shelves ANTONIUS FRAME ($11) | ||
| + | *Ikea ANTONIUS wire basket ($3.25) | ||
| + | *Home Depot Paint Stirrers (Free with-in-reason) (A 6 shelf rackmount we needed 24 big and 36 small stirrers) (We created the green screen paint at Home Depot they were generous enough to give us some) | ||
| + | *#4 or #6 Nylon or Metal screws, washers, nuts | ||
| + | *4 inch zip ties | ||
| + | *High density board (we used it instead of plexiglass because of the cost & board was stronger) | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| - | <br> | + | Setting up a 48 CPU core renderfarm on an Ikea shelf is finally complete. Each Ikea shelf has 2 motherboards in them, each holding a single AMD Phenom & 4GB RAM. With a very modest budget and a talented bunch of people we were able to accomplish something, many thought was either insanity or brilliance. It tooks us 3 versions and 4 months to get it right. We find that with the final version it is easy to maintain rackmount renderfarm.<br> |
Details coming soon... | Details coming soon... | ||
Revision as of 10:08, 1 April 2009
Goals:
- EASILY AVAILABLE COMPONENTS: Using items for the rackmount that you could find in "Ikea", "home depot" or any neighbourhood hardware store.
- EASY TO MAKE: Preparing the rackmount should not need any fancy tools but just regular household hardware tools.
- PORTABLE: Easy to move around the studio or ship to a different location.
- UPGRADABLE: Easy to upgrade, maintain. (Each node can be fixed without having to bring down the entire rackmount, if possible right on the rack itself.)
- EXPANDABLE: Easy to scale-up or scale-out. With ease to upgrade the components in each rack it easily scales-up. It is easy to add more shelves (racks) with 2 nodes, it is equally easy to scale-out.
- EFFICIENT USE OF SPACE: Safely pack as many nodes as possible in a given space.
- EFFICIENT USE OF ENERGY: Minimize the use of chasis fans to the bare minimum - CPU, PSU, Videocards. (Another benefit, reduces noise)
- Should be functional, stable
- Render animations jobs.
Hardware Specifications:
- 12 AMD Motherboards
- 12 Quad-core Phenoms
- 26x2GB (52GB RAM)
- 5 NVidia Quadro Video Cards for GPU based rendering (Gelato renderer)
- 10 NVidia video cards for GPU rendering and display
- 1 TB of HDD for NFS mount (can be easily expanded)
- 12 PSU (support GPU)
- 12 ATX Power switches
- 1 KVM Switch
- 16 Port Gigabit Switch
- 6 USB Mini Hubs
- 12 4GB USB Drives with Animux OS
- 12 Low Profile kit
Rack Specification
- Ikea 6 shelves ANTONIUS FRAME ($11)
- Ikea ANTONIUS wire basket ($3.25)
- Home Depot Paint Stirrers (Free with-in-reason) (A 6 shelf rackmount we needed 24 big and 36 small stirrers) (We created the green screen paint at Home Depot they were generous enough to give us some)
- 4 or #6 Nylon or Metal screws, washers, nuts
- 4 inch zip ties
- High density board (we used it instead of plexiglass because of the cost & board was stronger)
Setting up a 48 CPU core renderfarm on an Ikea shelf is finally complete. Each Ikea shelf has 2 motherboards in them, each holding a single AMD Phenom & 4GB RAM. With a very modest budget and a talented bunch of people we were able to accomplish something, many thought was either insanity or brilliance. It tooks us 3 versions and 4 months to get it right. We find that with the final version it is easy to maintain rackmount renderfarm.
Details coming soon...
- A step by step guide on how we built the Animux Rackmount Renderfarm.
- Measurement templates to drill holes to fix the motherboard (takes out guess work.)
- A time-lapse Video on how we built the Animux Rackmount Renderfarm.
- How render on nodes without harddisks.
- Metrics from rendering a project to test renderfarm.
- .......any many more details...
