Render farming, RAIDs, etc...

[Blade Borge]

Been reading wikipedia about render farming and RAID, but I'm not really sure how they are different or if they are the same. Would you say is one more expensive then the other? Which would you say produces faster results for rendering CG images. How hard is it to set up a render farm, do I need some special cables/software to attain such a thing?

Also, let's say I run 3 computers, that going to spike my electricty bill much?

 

[Cassius]

RAID and render farms are not in any way related.

One might give you a hard drive performance boost, the other provides a performance boost in every area, primarily done for processing power. Which clearly means a render farm is more powerful, but they aren't mutually exclusive.

If you run one computer now, then you run two computers, odds are your electricity use will increase by one computer during the time it runs.

Be aware that a render farm can only be used for CG elements.