For years I’ve had a dream of building a rack mounted PC capable of splitting its resources to host multiple GPU intensive VMs:

  • a few gaming VMs
  • a VM for work that can run Davinci Resolve and Blender renders
  • an LLM server
  • a Stable Diffusion server
  • media server

Just to name a few possibilities…

Everytime I’ve looked into it, it seemed like the technology just wasn’t there yet. I remember a few years ago Linus TT took a shot at it, but in the end suggested the technology (for non-commercial entities) just wasn’t in a comfortable spot yet.

So how far off are we? Obviously AI focused companies seem to make it work, but what possibilities exist for us self-hosters who might also want to run multiple displays in addition to the web gui LLM servers? And without forking out crazy money for GPU virtualization software licenses?

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    0·
    17 days ago

    Yeah, but if you’re this deep into the self hosting rabbit hole what circumstances lead to having an extra GPU laying around without an extra everything else, even if it’s relartively underpowered? You’ll probably be able to upgrade it later by recycling whatever is in your nice PC next time you upgrade something.

    At this point most of my household is running some frankenstein of phased out parts just to justify my main build. It’s a bit of a problem, actually.

    • Catsrules@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      17 days ago

      I have upgraded my GPU on my desktop without upgrading anything else. Leaving me with a spare GPU and no other hardware.

      Self hosting, I have also pulled GPUs out of systems to keep the power requirements down. As most of the time onboard GPUs are just fine for Self hosting applications. Also leaving me with a spare GPU.

      However over the years GPUs have because more popular for processing there are more arguments to keep the GPU in a home server. So I can see how this is going away.

    • vividspecter@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      17 days ago

      Mainly because running multiple desktop machines adds up to a lot of power, even at idle. If you power them off and on as needed it’s better, but then it’s not as convenient. Of course, if you leave a single machine with multiple GPUs on 24/7 that will also eat a lot of power, but it will be less than multiple machines turned on 24/7 at least.

      And the physical space taken up by multiple desktop machines starts to add up significantly, particularly if you live in an apartment or smaller house.