Farming Rig - Intel NUC Kit

Wanted to share this possible farming rig with you guys and see what you think.

The Intel NUC Kit NUC5i5RYH is barebones, but you can also buy it already customized.

You can build it yourself for about $600 (Core i5 processor) or $700 (Core i7 processor).

The specs I thought would be good are the following:

  1. 2TB HDD
  2. 256 GB SSD
  3. 8 GB RAM
  4. Intel NUC Kit NUC5i5RYH with Core i5 5th gen processor
    or
  5. Intel NUC Kit NUC5i7RYH with Core i7 5th gen processor

For the Operating System, I thought running Linux Mint would work well and is free.

QUESTION:
People recommend installing the operating system on the Solid State Drive and using the Hard Drive for storage. Would this work OK with the Maidsafe client? Or does the OS, vault, and Maidsafe client have to be all installed on the same drive?

What do you guys think about specs and OS? Will Maidsafe support Linux? i5 processor or i7 processor? Do you think a fan would be needed for distributed computing down the road?

More Pics:

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Any Intel 64 bit CPU will do.
No need for SSD.
MaidSafe can be installed on any disk.
This box is too pricey to be dedicated to SAFE, but if you use it for other things as well maybe it is okay.

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Thanks for the reply

I just wanted to have the OS on a separate drive. Is that OK to do? I wanted to dedicate a total of 2TB.

I was thinking of the future with distributed computing. But who knows how long that feature would take. I imagine that would be immensely complicated.

Linux OS ok? If I cheapen it up, how about a celeron processor? What about RAM? How much of a difference would that make? 4 GB RAM good?

Here’s a cheaper Intel Celeron NUC:

Intel NUC NUC5CPYH

Intel NUC NUC5CPYH on Amazon

Yes it’s okay to have separate drive (c: for OS & MaidSafe, d: for safe data, for example; the same goes for Linux).
4GB RAM should be fine (I think even 1GB ought to be, but we don’t know yet). Any 64-bit CPU should do.
It’s a bit wasteful to spend $200 on a dedicated system for SAFE; if you’re interested in Intel-based NUCs and not used to Linux, I’d install Windows 10 and use it for several purposes, not just SAFE.

I plan to run on a small system, but that depends on the availability of SAFE for ARM architecture and whether 1GB would be enough, so we’ll see about that.

Troll much?

Nobody should be recommending window 10. It is a completely spyware OS. Windows 8 users are being forced to update to window 10. That really tops it off.

We need mass exodus to linux.

The freaking vault holds encrypted user data. Who cares if the damn OS uploads the entire vault to the NSA?

[Disclaimer I’m fairly new to Safenetwork this is stuff I’ve picked up in the last couple of weeks]

I think it depends on

  • How fast your internet connection is
  • If you want to use this device for other stuff, or if it’s just a farming box

If your internet uplink connection is;

0.5 - 2Mbps up A Raspberry Pi (£38.99) and USB2 drive is probably the cheapest option and will likely get as many Safecoins as a faster device (if you don’t want to use it for other things too, and don’t care about a cable mess)

2Mbps - 30Mbps up. Maybe look at an Odroid-XU4 (£74) with a Sata drive case or my favorite a (fanless) Cubieboard 3 (£74) with a SATA drive case

30Mbps + up it might be worth looking at something as powerful as the Nuc device you linked to (or it might not)

In short nobody really knows until the network launches, but the ability of your internet connection to get data out to other vaults quickly is likely to be a limiting factor.

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I agree.
There have been a lot of discussions on this topic (best farming h/w) as well as on the reward system.

I just wouldn’t buy any ARM h/w for farming until I know there’s gonna be an ARM version of Safe (and I’m not talking about DIY builds, not interested in that). I happen to have few unused Pi2’s laying around but those were bought for random tinkering, not with the idea to use them for SAFE farming. If ARM gets supported I’ll use one of them, if not, I’ll wait till I find out how the reward system works (I expect that requests will be sent randomly to all vaults that have average reputation in the top 70% or something along those lines, which means slow & crappy systems ought work just fine as long as you manage them in a decent way and achieve with uptime and maintenance what they can’t deliver performance-wise).

And the fact that the test network run by Maidsafe is on Arm

Is good enough for me.

ARM support had been promised many times, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Not least because of the need to support mobile, but also because MaidSafe don’t want to make me cry.

Yes I noticed it’s been promised, so I haven’t started using unused Pi’s for other things.

Nice. Ive looked at something similar. Seems very pricey though.

Yep, you can buy 8TB of capacity for the cost of this box.

If you connect an external drive using a USB 3.0 port, will the transfer of data be slower than if the drive was connected to the mother board?

The question you must ask yourself is : Will this hardware be competitive ?

You’ll be competing with people who’d giveaway their already paid for unused resources for free.

You’ll be competing with servers with decent connection (+100mbps upload) that will emulate dozens if not hundreds of nodes.

Hint : You’re wasting your time.

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The difference would be insignificant.