[gradsusr] Recommended hardware for GrADS

[Joe Moore]

Arlindo,

Thanks for the advice! I've seriously been thinking of just getting a Mac
Mini. It's more than I'd like to spend, but I'd be getting a system that
would have a long useful lifetime. (Also, the $599 base model comes with an
core i5 processor, as opposed to the dated (Q2/2010) Atom D525 which is in
most of the systems I have been looking at.)

Also, thanks for the info on RAM and using an SSD! I really like the speed
and noise benefits of an SSD.

-Joe

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 9:37 PM, Arlindo da Silva <dasilva at alum.mit.edu>wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 8:07 PM, Joe Moore <joe at wxjoe.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello fellow users and GrADS developers!
>>
>> I'm researching to purchase a new machine to run GrADS. I'm buying a new
>> machine because I don't keep my computers on 24x7 and I would like a more
>> reliable method of creating real-time plots than my cheap shared web
>> hosting. (By using my own machine I will also be able to use GrADS-DODS,
>> since my web hosting blocks port 9090.)
>>
>> My plan is to purchase a "nettop" computer such as this<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220072>or
>> this <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103297>;
>> I'm looking for a bottom-of-the-line, energy efficient machine to run 24/7.
>> I will be installing some variant of Linux on it.
>>
>>
> I know it costs a bit more, but if it is within your budget Mac Mini's are
> really quiet and energy efficient:
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC815LL-Desktop-NEWEST-VERSION/dp/B004YLCLM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319159557&sr=8-1
>
> It can also serve as an entertainment system... I am not sure you can add
> SSD disks to Mac Minis...
>
>
>> My question is: As far as GrADS and speed goes, what would be the best
>> components to invest in? I'm no computer scientist, so I'm not sure if, for
>> instance, purchasing an SSD hard drive would increase the speed more than
>> extra RAM. (At the start, GrADS will be the only software running - maybe
>> multiple instances at the same time, though.) I also found this message from
>> Jennifer that stated that GrADS only runs on one processor; is this still
>> true?
>>
>>
> Most of those smaller machines have a limit on the amount of  memory it can
> take, so check the specs very carefully. The listed 2GB will get dated
> really soon. You can run multiple instances of grads with no problem (each
> one runs in 1 processor). However, they both must fit in memory and with 2GB
> you will be pushing it; make sure you can have at least 4GB; 8GB would be
> better. If you have a way of testing this now, check how much memory is
> taken by your typical grads process (on linux, use "top" to monitor memory
> consumption). Remember, running multiple instances only makes sense if you
> have multiple cores.
>
> Having a SSD disk (lower capacity ones such as 64 GB are getting
> affordable) would greatly improve I/O (both for gridded data as well as for
> reading map database during plotting). Since your application is I/O bound,
> this could greatly improve performance.
>
> So the answer is both: buy enough memory to fit multiple instances of
> grads, a small SSD disk to hold the OS and gridded datasets.
>
>    Arlindo
>
> --
> Arlindo da Silva
> dasilva at alum.mit.edu
>
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