This page contains information, plans, and results of club budget requests and purchases for the 2024-2025 school year.
Contents
Funding
VTLUUG is currently eligible for:
- $1,500 from the SBB for the year
We could in the future be eligible for:
- $500 a semester, more with justification
- if we become a CS Affiliated Org. This is theoretically possibly doable *right now*, during the Fall '24 semester. Theoretically.
- $??? from the SEC
- if we jump through all the required hoops. these seemingly are:
- attendance to SEC ~3 meetings a semester
- >=3 hours of community service via the SEC in a *previous* semester
- signing up for some stuff
- if we jump through all the required hoops. these seemingly are:
Proposed Purchases
For each of the following, use this format.
- $PRICE <item name> (<person interested in buying it>)
- reason for proposed purchase
- link to a store page or quote with the price
these are just ideas, don't feel shy about putting something with a wacky price tag down
- $640 8x12TB SAS Renewed HDDs (rsk)
- we can use these to turn cyberdelia into a massive NAS (~84TB with RAIDZ2 and a minimal root filesystem), which can then be used to serve public package mirrors (e.g. all ~5TB of Debian mirrors) and provide general storage for members
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D5SP2487prices raised- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZHNRHMM
- you can get listings around this price point from https://diskprices.com/
$165.75 300 stickers (rsk)User:Rsk bought some stickermule stickers on sale- assuming we can't print these at The Source, stickers are good to both give out at gobblerfest (advertising!) and haphazardly place on personal computing equipment. 300 should be enough to last us a while -- we should use HokieTux with the main website URL underneath.
- https://deathbystickers.com/products/white-vinyl-stickers-builder?variant=41114416611371
$150 three AMD poweredges, 2x(r815 48c 128G), 1x(r715 12c 64GB) (rsk)gone- this seems like a wildly good deal. no caddies, but that can be dealt with, the bigger issue could be that they aren't tested past the BIOS. all the cores would be great if we wanted to start giving away VMs on a larger scale.
- kubernetes cluster, possibly?
- https://blacksburg.craigslist.org/sys/d/christiansburg-lot-of-dell-poweredge/7795184704.html
- $26.00 server protector (ppitzer)
- We need to protect our servers from any errant passers-by to the server room. Ms. Miku has proven herself particularly adept at this task for VTARA, and I have confidence she will do the same for VTLUUG.
- https://www.amazon.com/SEGA-Luminasta-Hatsune-Anniversary-Version/dp/B0C5PFT4K2
Possible Setup 1 (this is just to test the waters) Ill have better ones There will be many possible builds depending on what other hardware people want to use or have (technically I am sleeping rn but this build was on my mind)
- $275 Intel® Core™ i9-10850K (daddykeystroke)
- 10th gen is the min required to run intel a770. Never had an i9 before.
- https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i9-10850K-Desktop-Processor-Unlocked/dp/B08DHRG2X9/133-1309834-0230441
- $179 ASUS Prime Z490-P LGA 1200 (Intel® 10th Gen) ATX Motherboard (daddykeystroke)
- I am ASUS enjoyer (People say they changed with the logo I have not noticed quality drop myself). Cheap, effective, works with 10th gen intel. (ONLY 2 PCIE 16 slots) this is never enough and the p100 faces the wrong way if I remember right.
- https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Prime-Z490-P/dp/B07ZT3F95V
- $199 EVGA Supernova 1200 P3, 80 Plus Platinum 1200W
- should easily be able to run both the p100 (250w) and the a770 (225w) and I'll likely upgrade my 3060 and 3090 and loan those to the cause also. (need better motherboard for this)
- https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Supernova-Platinum-Modular-220-P3-1200-X1/dp/B09GQM6CW3/133-1309834-0230441
- ~$400 dell t7910 (rsk)
- stick User:Daddykeystroke's p100 in, boom AI server
- plenty of room for modern ram (ddr4) and cpu upgrades in the future
- might need a power cable adapter to get the p100 working
- needs a hard drive
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/184760963431
- $80 drive caddies for the mystery proliant (rsk)
- we have this mystery server but no caddies nor 2.5in drives
- https://www.amazon.com/Caddy-DL380-BL460c-378343-002-500223-001/dp/B08SJ6Z9MS
- $152 8x500GB 2.5" for the proliant (rsk)
- $19 each, used. we'll put it in raid1, probably, total size will end up being 2TB if we buy all eight.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YJIGPQthese are SATA
Budget Requests
bundling items together into groups with decent purchasing justification
- server upkeep/parts
- eight proliant caddies and two 2.5" drives is sub $100. i (rsk) can just buy these.
- miku
- i (rsk)'ll just buy this too, it's kinda funny and about the same price as a half-rack of ribs and pulled pork at Perry Place.
- AI rig
sent requests
- backup & storage solution
- title:
- A Backup/Storage solution for VTLUUG services and members
- desc:
- We host several services for members and the general public, one of which is official reference material for Virginia Tech IT. Due to hardware failure and a lack of resources for the past few years, we no longer have the materials for an adequate backup solution to keep these services running: our purchase of hard drives here aims to rectify that.
- mission:
- The Linux and Unix Users Group at Virginia Tech (VTLUUG) is dedicated to improving the computing skills of its members, supporting Linux and Unix use on campus, and serving the community through Free Software and open data. We host various services for on-campus students and members, including DNS adblocking, Linux shell servers, storage, password management, and more. Some of our services, like our wiki, are used by Virginia Tech IT Personnel.
- storage:
- The Whittemore Server Closet, administrated by the ECE IT director, Bruce Buskill (bbuskill@vt.edu).
- why/how:
- The new hard drives will go in one of our existing servers, building a storage array with a complete size of over 100 Terabytes (allowing for several drive failures without data loss). Getting this amount of storage from a cloud service provider like BackBlaze B2 would cost on the order of $660 a month, every month that we want to retain our data. In comparison, doing it ourselves provides a valauble oppurtunity for club members to learn system and data administration, and in essence pays itself back within a single month. Once the storage array is built, members of the club will be able to upload and download from it at will, as well as apportion parts of it for their personal projects, and we can set up automated backups for our service data, to ensure that there is never significant downtime due to data loss.
- items
- 8x MDD 16TB 3.5inch Internal Enterprise Hard Drive
- title:
Renewed Hard Drives, at a per-drive cost of $110 for 16TB, coming out to a low $6.874 per-TB, currently the lowest on the market per https://diskprices.com the other lowest drives listed on that site that are Amazon Renewed (somewhat more reputable than a random used seller) are: $7.785 / TB: https://vtluug.org/users/~rsk/files/14tb.png $7.679 / TB: https://vtluug.org/users/~rsk/files/12tb.png and $7.785 / TB: https://vtluug.org/users/~rsk/files/14_2.png here is the listing page for the drives we our buying: https://vtluug.org/users/~rsk/files/16tb.png