Re: Distributed build overhead and Mac Mini vs XServe pricing
Re: Distributed build overhead and Mac Mini vs XServe pricing
- Subject: Re: Distributed build overhead and Mac Mini vs XServe pricing
- From: Scott Tooker <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:22:05 -0800
On Jan 16, 2005, at 9:48 AM, Andrew Kimpton wrote:
Scott Tooker wrote:
I believe that the Mac Mini has a 4200 rpm drive so the I/O
performance is not going to compete with the faster disks you find in
the G5 PowerMac or the xServe. However, as you point out the price
for a Mac mini is much lower, so using more Mac Minis may compensate
(don't know since I've never tried).
That's quite slow by current standards (I guess there's quite a price
saving). My PowerBook G4 has the 5400 RPM drive, but that's still a
bit faster. During a distributed build is the local drive used for
retrieving framework headers etc. ? Or does the data coming across the
net include a fully precompiled set of headers with everything in it?
Avoiding swapping would be the other key thing - the minis are really
no bargain at all with the Factory installed 1Gig Ram (add nearly $500
!), perhaps the more modest 512MB for an additional 75 bucks would be
better value.
Hmm, take that 4200 figure with a grain of salt. I though I saw that up
on the Apple web site, but now I can't find it. So I'm not sure how
fast the drive is, but it's not going to be as fast as our higher
performance machines.
As to how distributed builds works, if you are using a PCH then we
create it on the local machine and push it out to all the remote
builders. We also preprocess all files locally and then push out the
preprocessed sources to the remote builders. Also, all copying of
headers and resources into the final product and linking occur on the
local machine.
Since compilation is usually an I/O intensive process I think 512MB
would be fine for a builder, as long as it is not doing a ton of other
stuff.
The rule of thumb I go by is to start with 4 to 6 remote builders and
then increase from there if you are using a fast local machine.
Yep - I'm thinking that starting with 4 may be a good way to start, I
suspect we may even have other users for the machines around the
office (upgrading old iMacs on office desks etc.) if we find that the
Minis really don't cut it. We'll see what management says :-)
The local machine needs to perform all preprocessing for the remote
build servers, so 6 remote builders will place more strain on the
local machine than 2 remote builders.
Yep - I've found that a slow machine doing the 'coordination' can have
a overall build performance improved if it does NOT include itself in
the distributed build farm but rather is just 'running the build'.
Yeah, I've actually changed this for the next version of Xcode so you
can't have the local machine participate by default.
Scott
Scott
Andrew 8-)
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