The wall-mounted render farm

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 2nd October 2008

The glowing-blue server farm is mounted in the reception of the design company's offices, and takes zero floorspace.

If you've always fancied your own six-PC render farm but weren't sure how to hide such a beast from your significant other, take a leaf from Frederik Perman and Michael Stabile: flaunt it.

The pair, working for Perman's design form Pacific Design & Manufacturing, took an old six-PC render farm, some acrylic, the mandatory blue cold cathode tubes, and some nice strong wall anchors to create a system that was both functional and a good talking point for visitors to the company – located, as it is, in the foyer.

As reported by Hack a Day, the installation uses an aluminium frame to provide strength with a clear acrylic sheet to provide a look-but-don't-touch cover, a massive ten cold cathode tubes to provide that cool glow, and six blue-LED equipped fans designed to suck cool air in at the base and vent it from the top. Coupled with a wall-mounted monitor, keyboard, and wireless 'presenter' trackball you've got a powerful server farm that provides a discussion point and design statement, all without taking up any noticeable floorspace.

The systems themselves were originally single-processor Pentium 4 systems, although have since been upgraded to Intel Pentium Dual Core to provide a total of twelve discrete processors for rendering projects. The farm is controllable from the single monitor visible in the picture, as the pair have sunk an eight-port KVM switch into the wall. Networking is taken care of via the same wall – on the other side of which, handily, is the company's server room.

More pictures of the farm are available on the DVice website.

Tempted to turn some old hardware into a wall-mounted server farm, or is the idea just a shade too ridiculous for you? Share your thoughts over in the forums.