Recommendations on PC configuration for Openquake

[Sreeram Reddy]

Dear devs and users,

Perhaps this is a question out of context in this forum, but pardon me for this seems to be the only place to ask. Any recommendations are a welcome.

So I am now working at GFZ - Potsdam, where I will be performing hazard and risk analyses as part of my PhD. I will be using extensively Openquake, and I am required to build a PC for this sole purpose. I have come up with this configuration and I would request you the experts for suggestions. The null configuration is as follows:

• openSUSE 13.2 ( that is the recommended OS here, so I will have to run OQ on VM)
  
• 8 core Intel processor (or any AMD multi core hyper threaded processor?)
  
• 2 x 500GB HDDs ( or 1TB, and which RAID configuration?) 
• 16GB RAM ( multi-channel architecture, 4 of 4GB?)
• some VGA card
  

Is this configuration good? I may later get access to the server here for bigger calculations, but that is for later. Please advice.

Thank you and have my best regards,
Sriram

[Daniele Viganò]

Ciao Sreeram,

On Friday, October 17, 2014 10:36:35 AM UTC+2, Sreeram Reddy wrote:

• openSUSE 13.2 ( that is the recommended OS here, so I will have to run OQ on VM)
  

Since you'll be on Linux I strongly suggest you to use an LXC container instead of a VM, this will reduce to almost zero the virtualization overhead on performance

• 8 core Intel processor (or any AMD multi core hyper threaded processor?)
  

Looks good. Strongly suggest you an Intel Core i5 or i7 for this. Intel has an higher performance-per-clock ratio. Indeed they costs more. 

• 2 x 500GB HDDs ( or 1TB, and which RAID configuration?) 

If you are planning to run risk calculations 1TB would be better. If you don't care about disk faults (i.e. you have external backup storage) with RAID 0 you can increase overall DB performance, but with a failure on a single dire you will lose all the data. RAID 1 guarantees more resilience.

• 16GB RAM ( multi-channel architecture, 4 of 4GB?)

I would suggest to start with 2x 8GB so you'll have more spare slots for future expansion.

 

• some VGA card
  

OpenQuake don't care about it :) the Core I* integrated Intel cards (HD4*00 or the Iris Pro) are cards with best driver support in linux.

 

Is this configuration good? I may later get access to the server here for bigger calculations, but that is for later. Please advice.

Well it will depends on the size of the calculation you'll run. Any hint? (Regional, National... how many assets, log trees...)

Cheers,
Daniele

 

[Sreeram Reddy]

Ciao Daniele,

Thank you, I agree with your suggestions. I will be running mostly Monte Carlo ePSHA simulations for spatially distributed assets around 10Km2 area. So I think I should get a 2*500GB HDDs in RAID 1 to export the results to. Also yes, the VGA card support on Linux is quite disappointing, so I should stick with the Intel. I was thinking 4 * 4GB RAMs for better performance, but if you say 2 * 8 GB then I guess that's okay too.

Good. I will submit this configuration on Monday.

Thanks and enjoy your weekend,

Cheers,
Sriram

[Daniele Viganò]

It depends on how many slots you have on your mainboard and if you are planning to expand the memory soon (and you cannot recycle the old RAM modules) otherwise yes, 4x4GB can give you a slight improvements on memory operations.

About VGA, currently we don't use Cuda/OpenCL so even a Matrox G200 is good for us :)

Cheers,
Daniele