Plotting Server Setup - "Old" Dell R720

I’m slowly improving my plotting rig, but struggling to determine if it’s worth it or if I should just start from scratch.

CPU: 2 x Intel Xeon CPU E5-2690 v2 @ 3.00GHz (10 cores, 20 threads each)
Ram: 192GB DDR3-1333
Temp Drive: 1x Crucial P5 NVMe 2TB
Temp Drive (Compression): 8 x 3TB 6gbps SAS drives in a RAID10
Final Drive: 2x Seagate 16TB HDD (USB)

I’m trying to move away from the GUI and switch to using a tool like Plotman so I don’t have to constantly check-in to see if my plots are finishing. If I was to dump another $500-1000 into this rig, where would my money be best spent, or should I start picking up some NUCs and going that route. I’m currently achieving 0.7-1TB a day with this rig running 24/7

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Hello! What plotter settings are you using?

When I was using the GUI I was doing 6 plots in parallel with a 60min delay between plots, 6GB of RAM, 6 threads, 128 buckets. Writing all to NVMe drive (tmp and compression) with the 16TB Seagates as the final destination drive.

I’m still trying to figure out Plotman so I’m not sure what settings I should be running.
Right now:
major: 3
minor: 3
limit: 3
max jobs: 6
stagger: 15min
threads: 6
memory: 6GB
tmp: NVMe
compression: RAID10 SAS drives
destination: 16TB Seagate (USB)

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I haven’t used Plotman yet, so can’t comment on it.

But what I do know is that crossing processor boundaries ends up being slower than keeping the threads in the same processor. Here is what I would do with that hardware.
Break apart the RAID10. Grab 2 of those SAS drives and put them in Raid0

Plotter settings:

  • 8 parallel plotters with 2 thread, 3408 RAM, Temp: Crucial P5, Don’t use a 2nd temp drive, Final Drive: The Raid0
  • 6 parallel plotters using the SAS drives. 1 Per SAS drive. 2 thread, 3408 RAM, no 2nd temp drive, Final Drive: The Raid0

Copy script: Get a copy script going that will move the finished plots from the RAID0 to the USB drives.

Hopefully it takes all these plotters less than a day to finish. Then that would be 1.4TB/Day. If its faster, then its a higher TB/Day.

Money-wise, You could add another 2TB NVMe and get 8 plotters on that, bringing the total to 22. The CPU recommended limit is 30 parallel plotters with those CPUs. But do some benchmarks first to see if its worth it.

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Wow! that was super helpful! I’m going to try and get my config set up to do just this, and also see if I can get my hands on another 2TB NVMe. If I could hit a steady 2-3TB a day, I’d be happy with that.

Thank you!

Hey RougeOne, was curious how you ever made out with that setup? Got an old dell myself and curious if you were ever able to get anything decent with it.

Got an old r910 I’m playing around with but kinda all over the place with trying to get a good baseline. Curious how ya made out or if ya moved to another setup.

Thanks!

Try to get one of those “quad” m.2 pcie cards ! And then put four 1TB 980 pro’s in it ! Assuming it works that should dramatically speed up your plotting capacity.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Slot-B-Key-Bandwidth-Controller-Require/dp/B07WDM3H9Z

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