How to reduce a project to a given number of CPU tasks? - BOINC on external USB3 drive possible?

Message boards : Questions and problems : How to reduce a project to a given number of CPU tasks? - BOINC on external USB3 drive possible?
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Erich56

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Joined: 30 Dec 14
Posts: 95
Austria
Message 68985 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 6:20:38 UTC

I am running BOINC on a RAMDisk with 14GB size (the reason is that ATLAS@home writes tremendous amounts of data on the SSD, and I'd like to prevent it from early wear).

My projects are GPUGRID (with 2 GPUs, so 2 tasks should run simultaneously) and ATLAS.
My CPU is a 6-core plus 6 Hyperthreading.
Total RAM is 32GB, with 14GB RAMDisk deducted, there are 18GB system RAM remaining.
This, and a 50% CPU use setting in the BOINC manager, allows for 6 ATLAS tasks running simultaneously, so that there is sufficient space on the RAMDisk for the Atlas .vdi-image files in the BOINC SLOTS folder, and enough system RAM (ATLAS needs up to almost 3GB per task).

However, the problem is that GPUGRID would not download any tasks, even not if only 4 or 5 ATLAS task are running (instead of 6), since, according to the BOINC event log entry, more free disk space is needed ("Long runs [8-12 hours on fastest card] needs 2146.64MB more disk space. You currently have 5482.75 MB available and it needs 7629.39 MB.").
From my observations, it seems that if only 3 ATLAS tasks are running, there should be enough free disk space for GPUGRID.
So - my question now is: how can I limit the number of simultaneously running ATLAS tasks to 3, and yet leave the CPU usage at 50% ?
I have tried it with the "Ressource share" - this, however, did not yield the desired result. Value for GPUGRID was set to 1000, value for ATLAS to 200. Still, as soon as a GPUGRID task is not downloaded due to not enough disk space, ATLAS tasks are being downloaded instead - with the result of 6 ATLAS tasks running simultaneously, and no GPUGRID task.
So I need some other instrument for limiting the number of ATLAS tasks.
Any idea what I can do?

If nothing can be done on the software-side, the only solution of course would be a HDD in addition. However, with this I would have a space problem in my PC, since because of the two huge GPUs (GTX980Ti) and the huge CPU cooler (Noctua), the HDD cage had to be removed.
If really no other solution should work out, would running BOINC on an external USB-3 HDD be possible? I have not observed this during BOINC installation, as to whether one could point the data folder to an external USB drive.
I am aware that this would mean setbacks speedwise, but it might be worth trying (particularly, if it would be the only way to get GPUGRID running beside ATLAS).
Any thoughts and comments?
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Erich56

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Joined: 30 Dec 14
Posts: 95
Austria
Message 68987 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 7:41:50 UTC

I just read a posting in the ATLAS forum where someone else was having a similar issue - and he said that it got solved by installing a separate BOINC client.

I am wonderung whether it is really possible to just setup BOINC twice - this works? No interferences or other complications?
Is there anything I would have to particularly observe during installation or thereafter?

If this could be done, it most probably would solve my problem (unless any other unforeseen issues come up).
I would have one BOINC for ATLAS, and another one for GPUGRID, and just set the CPU usage %values as needed.

Any comments?
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Juha
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Message 68990 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 16:49:34 UTC - in response to Message 68987.  
Last modified: 15 Apr 2016, 16:51:05 UTC

It is possible to run more than one BOINC client on one machine. But there is an easier way to do what you want.

Create app_config.xml file and set <max_concurrent> or <project_max_concurrent> to 3.

Notice that the <max_concurrent> isn't hooked up to work fetch algorithm so this may result in your computer occasionally not fetching more work even when more is needed.
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Erich56

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Austria
Message 68993 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 20:25:21 UTC - in response to Message 68990.  

many thanks for your app_config.xml proposal. It will for sure help to get GPUGRID tasks running besides ATLAS tasks.
However, it still is only some kind or work-around, as - at least in my specific case - there is a huge waste of RAMDisk space and system RAM space.

Normally, with my RAMDisk (14GB) and system RAM (18GB) setting, plus my 6+6 core CPU, plus my 2 high-end GPUs, I could without problems crunch 6 ATLAS + 2 GPUGRID tasks at the same time.

But in fact, I will have to limit the ATLAS tasks to 2 (or maximum 3, what I doubt, but I have to try it out).

It's really too bad that GPUGRID has this 7.629MB free disk space requirement, which might only be "historical" and not valid in reality. Meanwhile, I have contacted the GPUGRID people; so we'll see what they say.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : How to reduce a project to a given number of CPU tasks? - BOINC on external USB3 drive possible?

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