Just some random thoughts on render farms while I sit here and wait for a rather long render to finish.

What's needed for a render farm...?  You just need loads of PCs.  But buying 10 or 20 PCs seems like such a waste, when all you really need are the processors, a tiny tiny hard drive, and a little memory.  You don't need optical drives or floppy drives (use USB ones, then you only need one drive!).

So here's my shopping list, for a 10 pc render farm:

1 x USB CD / DVD optical drive
1 x USB floppy (optional, you can even install windows by booting from CD)
10 x motherboards ( with USB and LAN )
10 x processors
10 x 256mb or 512mb memory
10 x tiny hard drives... whats the smallest you can get now, 40gb?  Even that is far too much space!
10 x Windows licenses

You'd need one monitor / keyboard / mouse set but if you've already got a desktop, use the ones from there (I just have laptops though hehe)...  But you only need these if all else fails... once you're all set up, then normally you'll be using remote-desktop or some such software to fiddle about on the nodes.

So the question is... where can you buy small PCs or even rack mount ones which only have motherboards processors, memory and say 10gb hard drives... or is this a job for eBay?

Let's have a discussion :)

Mark

You can pick up computer systems in the garbage these days.. and strip them.....   Power supplies are also need ....   It is very posible to make your own Farm...  I have one extra system and I'm thinking of using Lenux in that system......  Lenux BTW.. is very fast....  just a thought..

That would be interesting to see Lightning setup on. Im still kinda new with networking. I have just one client here, and I matched  it to my host system as best I could, direct connect.  I was able to find a 10gb HDD at a local Frys.

Costs for all components tend to be a bell curve. There is sort of a magic point where smaller drives don't get any cheaper. There is another one where the the price for extra size starts to climb. I don't know if you can even get a 10gig drive anymore. I have seen 40gigs for $40 and 120gigs for $90.

Unless you already have it you need some kind of hub as well so the systems can talk to each other.

I'm no expert but when I try to boot my single system if the bios can't find a mouse, keyboard, or display I never even get to windows. You may have to get specific types of motherboards or bios to allow you to run without input and output divices.

I'll repeat... you can find the parts in the garbage!!!   you just need a setup table at home  to trouble-shoot the hard drive as good or bad...    98% will be good....  cables galore, screws, mounting plates, power supplies, disk drives, dvd-r/w.....  and monitors.... enough to build a kindom...

If I had enough room to do that type of work I would start to pick up stuff...

Get a switch instead of a hub.

We're not allowed to throw computer parts into the garbage here... they have to be taken to a recycling center.  And people don't tend to like you going to a recycling center to take things away :)

Besides, for a render farm you'd probably want consistant sets of hardware, i.e. identical motherboards and processors etc.  Otherwise you're likely to spend too much time troubleshooting drivers etc which would be different for each system... and that kind of rubbish.

There are shops etc on ebay selling bulk recycled drives etc, for instance I found someone selling 10 (coincidentally!) 10gb drives very cheap... maybe this is the way to do it.  Find someone selling bulk reclaimed parts.

Companies like dell and gateway lease systems then resell these systems cheap after they come back.
Check out the dell outlet link from this home computing page. They hardly ever post the link directly from their frontpage.
http://www.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Here's the link for gateway's remanufactured and off lease desktops.
http://www.gateway.com/reman/hm_desktop_matrix.shtml

Tigerdirect buys off lease systems from compaq, emachines, acer, etc. and sells complete systems. They set up their pages by popularity so you can find a $2000 system right next to a $200 one. The first page has a compaq system off lease for $249. Check out the barebones deals as well. I've seen motherboards with processor for $70.  Caviat with this place is that many components have rebates. You have to pay $120 for that $70 barebone kit and wait a few months for the check to come back. Sometimes you have to fill out the rebate form in green ink at midnight, under a full moon, while facing west or you haven't filled it out properly and don't get the rebate.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlcNEW.asp?CatId=6

I recently went looking for a new power supply because I run 3 hard drives and two CDs. I wound up getting the case with 500Watt supply for $50 at BestBuy. The 400Watt power supplies by themself were $70. It was more work to swap everything, but the case was better and had two front ports for USB.

Deals are all around, but you usually have to buy from 2 or 3 supplier to get the best prices. Deals also change constantly so decide how much you want to spend and be ready to go.

Something else I thought I should mention is software deals. When you buy a system or motherboard you can qualify for OEM prices on operating systems. There are also deals that you may get through work or school.

My company has a microsoft site license. Because of this I can buy for my home computer one copy of Windows XP $25 and one copy of Office Pro $21.

My daughter is a full time student at UT. She can buy a first copy of each software for around $25. She can get up to 4 additional copies each for $69 and install on 5 machines total.

If she sends a copy of her student ID to Acadenic Superstore she can buy the following:
Maya Unlimited 8 Student edition $389.95
Cararra Pro 5 $129.95
Lightwave 9 $194.95
Cinema 4D 10 $694.95
3D Studio Max 9 $389.95
Rhino, Penguin, Flamingo and Boingo bundle $369.95

Thanks for that electroglyph... looks like it's definitely worth researching more into this.  Thank you very much!

Local computer shows here, used to have lots of parts cheap. A business owner was getting parts from PCClub standing next to me in line for a cyber cafe, so I guess they have cheap parts too, or ask a cyber place about how they bought/setup their LAN's. You may be able to try this at a cyber place as well, since all you need is Lightning on the client. Just a suggestion.

Attached Link: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1815797,00.asp

Attached Link: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1815797,00.asp

Even professonals at Extreem Tech tell you that technical geeks are using leftovers systems to put render farms together..   Because is a wise thing to do for those who do not have a big money wallet...  

someones rubbish is anothers good hard drive...

Here's another question... maybe all of us here could run Lightning on our PC's when we're not using them (say over night... one persons night is another persons day, after all)...

Global render farm?

Mark.

Global renders? Judging by the Lightning network code(33% hit on my system), Bryce might actually be ALOT slower that way...

yea and you got to leave your machine wide open to the elements in the WWW all night long....

I think my machine would kick me for doing that...  

fpfrdn3 - not for the person doing the render... say you had 20 or 30, decent spec machines up and running and available for your free use... wouldn't you use the facility?

tom271 - agreed, it's not very nice... however for me personally i'm behind a router / firewall and would just open up the bryce port...

Mark