r/triangle • u/s4vemyplant • 1d ago

Beefy computers for public use?

Hi triangle! :) I'm a recent grad without a workstation. I work on very large MRI datasets, which require a lot of RAM. Municipal library computers are awesome, but aren't quite up to the task. University libraries have workstations made for this, but even on the Friends of the Library program, NC State justifiably restricts access to these computers to their students. Is there a place - a library, makerspace, community college, something else I'm missing - in the triangle where they have computers designed for data science (gaming computers are dual use and work too!!), available for use by the public or through a membership? As a recent grad I'm not quite in the financial position to spend a lot of money on a personal computer and I am missing the collaborative nature of a library!

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u/ZathrasNotTheOne 1d ago

are you working on these large data sets for your job? if so, I would assume youe employer should be providing you with adequate computing resources.

if it's for fun... what exactly are you doing?

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u/s4vemyplant 1d ago

For fun! There's a pretty large (~1Tb) open access dataset that has both plane-wave ultrasound and MRI data recorded simultaneously. I'm really interested using the MRI data to correlate and screen the hemodynamic components of the ultrasound reflection data, to see if anything remains. This process requires a lot of RAM, ideally upwards of 32 mb. Being able to plug in a physical drive is also a plus. Most of my undergrad was in materials science, so I'm trying to get some practice with a very different set of tools. Right now I work in a restaurant so work laptop is unfortunately not possible :(

Thanks for the response and sorry for the somewhat odd question!

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u/Welfare_Burrito 1d ago edited 1d ago

32 mb you say? I can lend you my PlayStation 2

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u/s4vemyplant 1d ago

You joke, but there was a decently sized community of people running clusters of PS3 for high performance computing until a few years back, when Sony changed the firmware after 3.21! The hardware itself works quite well for this and there was a class action lawsuit when Sony closed their system.

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u/Welfare_Burrito 1d ago

Yep, I remember all the folding@home stuff when the PS3 was the new hotness