Building a 100TB Folding@Home Server!
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Check out the limited edition Folding @Home x LTT shirt with 100% of the profits going directly to help fight COVID-19, matched by Intel up to $40,000: lmg.gg Due to the massive influx of people donating their processing power to the Folding @Home project their work servers have actually been completely overloaded, but LTT was ready for the call. So in today's video, we build our OWN Folding @Home work server to help in the fight against Covid-19! Buy Kingston ECC DDR4 Memory On Amazon (PAID LINK): geni.us On Newegg (PAID LINK): geni.us On BHPhoto (PAID LINK): geni.us Buy E5 2697 v3 Processor On Amazon (PAID LINK): geni.us On Newegg (PAID LINK): geni.us On BHPhoto (PAID LINK): geni.us Buy Ironwolf Pro 12TB Drives On Amazon (PAID LINK): geni.us On Newegg (PAID LINK): geni.us On BHPhoto (PAID LINK): geni.us Buy Intel Optane SSD On Amazon (PAID LINK): geni.us On Newegg (PAID LINK): geni.us On BHPhoto (PAID LINK): geni.us Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group. Discuss on the forum: linustechtips.com Our Affiliates, Referral Programs, and Sponsors: lmg.gg Get Private Internet Access VPN at lmg.gg Get a Displate Metal Print at lmg.gg Get a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime at lmg.gg Linus Tech Tips merchandise at lttstore.com Our Test Benches on Amazon: amazon.com Our production gear: geni.us Get your ticket to LTX 2020: ltxexpo.com Twitter - twitter.com Facebook - @LinusTech Instagram - @linustech Twitch - twitch.tv Intro Screen Music Credit: Title: Laszlo - Supernova Video Link: youtube.com iTunes Download Link: itunes.apple.com Artist Link: soundcloud.com Outro Screen Music Credit: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High youtube.com
The video explains the motivation for building a Folding@Home server to help the COVID-19 related simulations when volunteer compute power was overwhelmed. It starts by framing Folding@Home as a distributed computing effort that relies on servers to intake work units from clients, highlighting the need for a robust server in addition to individual volunteers’ machines. The host outlines the plan to repurpose an old decommissioned server and upgrade it with high-end components, aiming for a scalable setup capable of handling thousands of clients concurrently. The first section of the build focuses on evaluating CPU, RAM, bandwidth, and storage requirements, explaining why the existing hardware would bottleneck the project and what upgrades are necessary to meet Folding@Home’s recommendations. The video then details the upgrade path, including a new 14-core Xeon CPU, 128 GB of RAM, eight 12 TB NAS drives, and a fast caching layer using an Intel Optane SSD, all designed to accelerate data access and sustain large-scale client activity. Finally, the host discusses software configuration, including ZFS for storage management, a RAID-Z2 array, ARC caching strategy, and network controls like firewall rules and a bandwidth limiter, to optimize throughput while avoiding saturation of the local network. The closing portion reflects on early results, ongoing collaboration with Folding@Home, and community fundraising efforts, including a charity shirt design that Intel would match to support COVID-19 research, underscoring the project’s dual goal of scientific contribution and community engagement.
Topics · hardware · science_and_technology · distributed_computing · data_storage · networking · server_setup · open_source_collaboration