New Folder - Maximize Costs/Performance

[Buckwheet]

So I finally registered and decided to post up. In the past I have casually folded but primarily was a Seti@Home user. Add me to the list of converts!

Anyways, my company has been giving away to employees who want them old servers and equipment we don't use anymore. So I decided to take a few home with me and I just want to make sure I am getting the most bang for my buck with them. I picked up 2 Dell 2950s, they came with 4GB of RAM and 2x E5110s. I could have picked up 20 more of them before they went to the recyclers, but I wasn't sure if they were worth the juice you would pay to power them.

Currently I have Ubuntu 10.10 installed and folding with out issue using the -smp flag. On Project P6971 machine 1 is getting ~3500 PPD according to HFM. On project P6942 machine 2 is getting ~3400PPD according to HFM. The CPUs are showing full load in the Ubuntu system monitor. I just am not sure if this performance is worth the power costs or if I should just part out the servers on Ebay.

I also picked up Dell 2900 which came with a single E5410 and 4GB of RAM. This machine is also running Ubuntu 10.10 with the -smp flag. It is on project P6063 and getting ~5600 PPD from HFM.

The last machine was a Core-i5 test platform whitebox with 8GB of ram, and that is getting ~8000 PPD on project P6944. I don't plan to fold on this for long and turn it into a desktop computer. But the performance of this machine seems to be far better than the servers. So that is why I was thinking of parting out the servers and building whitebox machines.

I am picking up another server tonight which will be a 2x E5310 machine with 8GB of RAM, not sure what that will do for folding performance so any advice would be appreciated on if I should even spend the time to put it online. The agreement we have to sign with the company says that we won't sell the servers as whole units due to the agreements with Dell, but we have the okay to sell the raid cards, drives, memory, processors if we decide to get rid of them.

Right now based on the performance to power ratio, it looks like I would be better off parting them out and buying something new.

Thanks for any and all information provided.

[tmillic]

I'd recommend minimizing the cost/performance ratio.
Do you know how much power they're drawing already? If they have raid cards and arrays still inside, you could remove them to reduce the power consumption. If you're running folding alone, you could use just 1 or even 0 hard drives as well as remove any discrete graphics cards (why would a server have one anyway?) and use the onboard GPU at run-level 3 to save even more power. If they're in your home now, how is the noise level of these? A 1U unit can be quite loud with it' small fans.

[7im]

Welcome to the forum and the project, Buckwheet. I am a S@h convert myself.

Computers are more like appliances than ever. The newer cheaper models often perform better and cost less. Take all the freebees you can get, and part them out until you can build a few new custom boxes of your own.

[Buckwheet]

They are pulling ~850-880 watts from the wall total. They are all running off of a single drive. They are located in an isolated part of my basement where I had other servers running so the noise is not a problem. There is lots of concrete between any living space and where they are stored.

I think I can get $400 from the raid cards themselves, and not sure about the processors/ram. That should leave me with enough to build a single 2500k/2600k system. Which looks to put out quite a few more points.

[7im]

More points, less power used, and newer/fewer systems to maintain. Wins all the way around.