There's some guy named Robert Simplicio who had the idea to build a server farm and fold for people for a fee. Prices range from $399 for a lifetime subscription to $120 for 6 months. Link to the website here

http://foldingfarmer.com/

and the Folding-Community forum thread here

http://forum.folding-community.org/view ... 705#190705

What do you guys think about this? Some of the main concerns so far about this is how long the company will last and if this is a scam. Personally I don't think the company will last very long due to the crippling electricity/maintenance bill. It's a good idea though.

Soooo tempting!

Maybe it's just me, but this sounds like a double plus ungood deal.

The only way this would work out well for a subscriber would be to purchase a "lifetime" deal, but nothing is specified about how long a "lifetime" is. Is it the lifetime of the system or company? Secondly, at thsi rate without timesharing the CPUs in the fashion that they do in large datacenter/processing facilities the costs willl undoubtedly outweigh the profits in short order... especially if enough lifetime subscribers sign up.

Interesting concept, but it looks to me to be a raw deal. Now if they were offering a percentage of total system performance they'd be onto something but a deditacted rig at those prices? I smell insolvency in short order.

[img:1]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6418/specam5.png[/img]

$4 overbudget but you get the idea. That rig would be good for about 1600 points per day.

you can probably take away the ram.

I wouldn't mind If people paid me. My rates would probably be higher though

Huh? A system without RAM wouldn't be much use unless you needed a nice heavy paperweight.

If by take away you mean use something cheaper, then yes you could definitely get away with cheaper RAM. However, in order to get the E6320 to 3+ GHz you'll need pretty good RAM because the 7x multiplier requires a 430 MHz FSB for just 3 GHz.

Password When you get it figured out, post a PPD/$. You might get some takers. I'm sure that anyone who frequents this site would rather hit their PayPal button for you than someone we've never heard of.

what dose a sevrer need a flash drive for?data backup?

psycodrew, by utilizing flash instead of an hd you are able to have a small file system for folding that takes very little power.

Bootable DSL (Damned Small Linux) on a USB stick ~500 MB for the OS. I've burned it to CD and booted my Linux box into it, works great. $65 on a 2 GB stick drive from the makers. It helps support their project or you can make your own. No need for a disk drive or a CD, a major power and cooling savings. I have a couple of small USB sticks big enough to hold DSL; but not F@h data as well. Hmmm, off to Newegg to check out BTI's E4400 cpu suggestion...

stevew, what sizes, i think i can find somet folding distros that may be suited for being small.

Well actually with BTI's suggested Intel E4400, I was hoping for SMP cores. Would that be doable?

[Edit 22:37] Above shopping list w/E6400 $471. (Rosewill case w/400 watt + USB stick from Crucial $21.) tempting

why not just use solid stare memory of a CF to IDE converter it will run much more quicqly and look there only $2.00
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.711

super fantastic mega dose extra huge extremly large bump. i thinking about doing this. i'll be charging based of electricity usage of the pc.