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Hardware FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
System X Construction & Hardware
Q: How fast is 12.25 Teraflops?
A:
Think of it this way, there are roughly 6 billion human beings on
planet Earth. Try to imagine every human being on the planet performing
more than 2000 arithmetic operations in less than a second.
Q: How much heat does System X generate?
A:
Each rack full of equipment generates in excess of 8 kilowatts of heat
on a continuous basis and the machine consists of about 40 racks.
That's like 240 hair dryers on high constantly in 1000 square feet of
space.
Q: How is System X cooled?
A: System X uses a Liebert Extreme Density
cooling system that is fed off of a chilled water loop. There are two
125 ton Carrier water chillers that provide roughly 3 million BTUs of
cooling capacity. This chilled water loop is heat exchanged in the
Liebert XDP units with a R-134A refrigerant loop that is fed to the
rack mounted liquid-to-air heat exchangers. We only use about 110 tons
of the 250 ton capacity.
Q: How much electricity does System X consume?
A:
System X consumes roughly 310 kilowatts per hour or 250,000 kWh's per
month. That much energy could power between 400 and 500 homes for a
month.
Q: How much did System X cost to build?
A:
The machine itself (computers, network switches, and cables) cost $5.7
million. The facilities renovations (power equipment, cooling
equipment, construction labor) cost $2 million. Assembly labor (machine
processing, cabling, software porting) was done on a volunteer basis,
but would have accounted for approximately $60,000 of additional cost
(IT staff and faculty hourly rates, $10/hr student wage rate).
Q: How long did it take to build System X?
A:
Planning began in January of 2003. Facilities planning began in April
of 2003. Renovations began the first week of August and were completed
on September 23, 2003. Computers, network equipment, and cables began
arriving the first week of September 2003. The computers arrived in six
shipments during a seven day period and were processed into the racks
in less than 2 hours per shipment with no more than 30 volunteers
working a shift. Ethernet cabling (roughly 1200 connections) was done
by a four man team from our internal communications and network
services group and was completed in less than 14 days. InfiniBand
cabling (roughly 1700 connections) began September 13, 2003 and was
completed by a team of five people in 10 days. The initial machine was
torn down by eight people between January 14 and January 19, 2004. The
Xserve upgrade was completed by a team of Virginia Tech and Apple
volunteers over a much more staggered period of time. Rack preparation
and pre-cabling of Ethernet began in February and was completed by less
than ten people. Machines arrived in odd batches beginning in the
middle of June 2004 and were processed into the racks by no more than
16 people working for no more than 9 hours a shift (first shipment; 304
Xserves racked in 9 hours by a 16 person team). Final cabling was
completed over a two week period by no more than ten people working a
shift. The machine was back online for benchmarking by August 1, 2004.
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