5 ms·

I dunno.. a macmini M1 idles 7watt. This cluster does 36watt idle, 43watt normal use, or 48watt idle with the fan, and probably 62watt peak load with high fan.

I dunno.. a macmini M1 idles 7watt. This cluster does 36watt idle, 43watt normal use, or 48watt idle with the fan, and probably 62watt peak load with high fan. The M1 uses 26 under load and 39watt peak load (16GB with the 2TB ssd version according to apple). Measured with kill-a-watt, I've read 4watt idle and 20watt full load. So I think the 26watt is probably a more realistic value. 16GB version: $899 1TB usb-c ssd: $109 1U rackmount: $199 This will give you 16GB ram and 1.2TB ssd for $1207. It can fit two mac minis. As the purpose was 1U with max 1A/120V, you'd be able to run 3 mac minis in 1U (or 4 if you make sure they don't exceed 30watt). In terms of performance the pi does 295single and 830multi. 5 rpis is 295single (does not increase with 5 rpis!) and 4150multi. The M1 does 1748single and 7660multi. So you get about twice the cpu performance (ignoring the super fast 256gb ssd, and other hardware features the M1 has, and the overhead of running a 5 node cluster). A rackshelf for 4 mac-minis is $359. If you'd actually put in 3 (because of the 1A limit), you'd have 6x the cpu performance for somewhere between $3000 and $3300 (depending on the storage you want). All still in 1U. If power usage can be higher, you could actually fit up to 8 mac minis (36" depth) for 2.6A @120V. The comparison table in the article compares this setup with a Dell using 2.08A ("not at peak?"). But if you consider a max of about 20watt per M1, you can host 4-6 M1s with 1A. Also, you won't have to deal with breaking sd cards, the heat, noise, the wiring mess, and it has many hardware features that an rpi doesn't have. You won't have to deal with the storage, memory and cpu overhead of running something distributed. Still it's fun to tinker around with rpis. Although I stopped using them, as storage is really flakey because of the SSDs. Other SBCs offer built-on ssd storage.

hutrdvnj 5y ago
That's why I hope that the pi 5 has built-on ssd storage + m.2 slot and gets a significant performance boost to come more close to M1 speeds.
- the_biot 5y ago
  The point is that the Raspberry Pi -- any version -- has always been underpowered and overhyped. Wishing for the next version to be better is nonsense. Pick any recent SBC, and it'll be better bang for the buck. This has been true every since the first RPi.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    The real power of the pi is not computing prowess but price and access to hardware.
  - hutrdvnj 5y ago
    I think you underestimate community support. Other SBCs have no where near as much community support as pi has. There are so many things you can do with the pi, thx to community efforts, that it is not worth (in many cases) to switch to a less supported but more powerful SBC. And there are an ever increasing number of pi hats, that allows you extend pis possibilities for your use-case. To get some inspiration I can recommend https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      parent wasn't comparing rpis to smaller/worse products I think
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Other SBCs are starting to catch up now that there are opensource drivers for ARM GPUs. Once all the drivers are in place the raspberry pis is actually an evolutionary dead end because of its video core based architecture. They'll have to redo the RPi 5 SoC entirely and probably get rid of 32bit raspbian.
  - rualca 5y ago
    > The point is that the Raspberry Pi -- any version -- has always been underpowered and overhyped. This sort of comment is extremely short-sighted and totally oblivious to . A raspberry pi was always, from the very first day, an inexpensive (even expendable) ubiquitous computing platform aimed at being the infrastructure for educational projects. Do you want to toy around with a robot? You spend 20 or 30€, a few actuators, perhaps a camera, slap in some python code, and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with LEDs to make them blink? You spend 20 or 30€, add a few LEDs, slap some python code and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with distributed systems? You spend 60 or 80€ on three or four RPIs, plug them into a router and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with wifi mesh networks? You spend 60 or 80€ on three or four RPIs, configure them, and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with a media center? You spend 20 or 30€ on a RPI, configure it, and you're good to go. What´s the common denominator? Enough pocket money to get your hands on a RPI, and you do not care that it gets blown up because you can get another one just as easily. Raspberri Pis flatten the learning curve to the point where kids in middleschool can go at it without any concern. It's just a computer running linux that does not have to deal with arcane devkits or resource constraints. Do you know what would cost to do the same thing prior to Raspberry Pi creating this whole sector? Between 300 and 500€ for a single devboard with similar spects.
- Havoc 5y ago
  > to come more close to M1 speeds. M1 is on 5nm tech while Rpi4 is on 28nm. i.e. multiple chip nodes behind. Still..could be close depending on how far out the rpi5 is
fulafel 5y ago
Also, the RPi doesn't support suspend (= sleeping in low power mode). See https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1281 https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1281 But for the 1U colocation use case, the Mini is not relevant. You could start a project for housing it in 1U I guess, would be an interesting post.
- phlyingpenguin 5y ago
  Not relevant? Why? https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/rackmac-mini https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/rackmac-mini
reacharavindh 5y ago
Yes, M1 minis are super attractive in this regard. I wonder if it’d be possible to simply run them as Linux servers instead of MacOS. They even come with 10G networking. If they boot Linux, they’d make super efficient Linux servers that satisfy many use cases very nicely.
- willis936 5y ago
  I don't have direct experience, but I'm under the impression that MacOS' hypervisor is pretty good. Edit: I was thinking of Boot Camp, which requires an Intel processor. M1 is still in early days and definitely not the right choice if you want to run existing x86 code on an OS other than Mac.
  - zenexer 5y ago
    As an avid Docker user on M1, it’s actually not bad. Docker let’s you choose between Apple’s virtualization and qemu. Apple’s performs better in terms of CPU, but qemu is miles ahead in terms of I/O performance. Neither solution is anything to write home about, but it works well enough. Better than a Pi cluster, though? I think it’d be close. If you’re goal is to run Linux, M1 might not be best solution for now. That assumes you’re running ARM images—I haven’t tried emulating x86, but I hear the performance is abysmal.
- shreddit 5y ago
  There is a Port of the Linux kernel for M1, so it shouldn't take much longer for distros to be available https://github.com/corellium/linux-m1 https://github.com/corellium/linux-m1
aphrax 5y ago
Which SBC did you settle on? Didn’t realise some had built in ssd storage..
- genewitch 5y ago
  the odroid H2 has an nvme (or ssd, i forget) m.2 slot, takes SODIMM, and has built in gigabit. for a fully decked out H2 though it's about $300 or so, which starts to creep into "NUC" territory. The good thing about the H2 is it's intel (J5 iirc), which may or may not matter depending on the use case. For a cheaper option, the Atomic Pi has built in MIMO wifi/bt, 1gbit ethernet, a single USB3 port, and <10W guaranteed TDP. Fully loaded the api is about $55. The H2 can use 12-20VDC, the api demands 5VDC, which makes the PSU for the api more expensive.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I was surprised the M1 was only 6x or so the RPI in performance. I thought it would be much more. I guess the RPI 4 is more advanced than I thought.
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  Multi core it’s more. And this is just the cpu. Not the gpu, or memory bandwidth and latency or many of the accelerations
- flyinghamster 5y ago
  The 4 and 400 are among the few cheap SBCs I've seen that have a Cortex-A72. That's probably a big factor in the Pi 4/400 punching above their weight.
- BackBlast 5y ago
  I use arm servers in production and regularly benchmark them. On my application the M1 is 11x the speed of a rpi4 in single core performance. Ampere Altra running at 3ghz is a bit above 4x a rpi4. Single core. I'm moving to Ampere instances in the cloud.

hutrdvnj 5y ago

That's why I hope that the pi 5 has built-on ssd storage + m.2 slot and gets a significant performance boost to come more close to M1 speeds.

the_biot 5y ago
The point is that the Raspberry Pi -- any version -- has always been underpowered and overhyped. Wishing for the next version to be better is nonsense. Pick any recent SBC, and it'll be better bang for the buck. This has been true every since the first RPi.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  The real power of the pi is not computing prowess but price and access to hardware.
- hutrdvnj 5y ago
  I think you underestimate community support. Other SBCs have no where near as much community support as pi has. There are so many things you can do with the pi, thx to community efforts, that it is not worth (in many cases) to switch to a less supported but more powerful SBC. And there are an ever increasing number of pi hats, that allows you extend pis possibilities for your use-case. To get some inspiration I can recommend https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    parent wasn't comparing rpis to smaller/worse products I think
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Other SBCs are starting to catch up now that there are opensource drivers for ARM GPUs. Once all the drivers are in place the raspberry pis is actually an evolutionary dead end because of its video core based architecture. They'll have to redo the RPi 5 SoC entirely and probably get rid of 32bit raspbian.
- rualca 5y ago
  > The point is that the Raspberry Pi -- any version -- has always been underpowered and overhyped. This sort of comment is extremely short-sighted and totally oblivious to . A raspberry pi was always, from the very first day, an inexpensive (even expendable) ubiquitous computing platform aimed at being the infrastructure for educational projects. Do you want to toy around with a robot? You spend 20 or 30€, a few actuators, perhaps a camera, slap in some python code, and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with LEDs to make them blink? You spend 20 or 30€, add a few LEDs, slap some python code and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with distributed systems? You spend 60 or 80€ on three or four RPIs, plug them into a router and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with wifi mesh networks? You spend 60 or 80€ on three or four RPIs, configure them, and you're good to go. Do you want to toy around with a media center? You spend 20 or 30€ on a RPI, configure it, and you're good to go. What´s the common denominator? Enough pocket money to get your hands on a RPI, and you do not care that it gets blown up because you can get another one just as easily. Raspberri Pis flatten the learning curve to the point where kids in middleschool can go at it without any concern. It's just a computer running linux that does not have to deal with arcane devkits or resource constraints. Do you know what would cost to do the same thing prior to Raspberry Pi creating this whole sector? Between 300 and 500€ for a single devboard with similar spects.
Havoc 5y ago
> to come more close to M1 speeds. M1 is on 5nm tech while Rpi4 is on 28nm. i.e. multiple chip nodes behind. Still..could be close depending on how far out the rpi5 is

fulafel 5y ago

Also, the RPi doesn't support suspend (= sleeping in low power mode). See https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1281 https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1281 But for the 1U colocation use case, the Mini is not relevant. You could start a project for housing it in 1U I guess, would be an interesting post.

phlyingpenguin 5y ago
Not relevant? Why? https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/rackmac-mini https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/rackmac-mini

reacharavindh 5y ago

Yes, M1 minis are super attractive in this regard. I wonder if it’d be possible to simply run them as Linux servers instead of MacOS. They even come with 10G networking. If they boot Linux, they’d make super efficient Linux servers that satisfy many use cases very nicely.

willis936 5y ago
I don't have direct experience, but I'm under the impression that MacOS' hypervisor is pretty good. Edit: I was thinking of Boot Camp, which requires an Intel processor. M1 is still in early days and definitely not the right choice if you want to run existing x86 code on an OS other than Mac.
- zenexer 5y ago
  As an avid Docker user on M1, it’s actually not bad. Docker let’s you choose between Apple’s virtualization and qemu. Apple’s performs better in terms of CPU, but qemu is miles ahead in terms of I/O performance. Neither solution is anything to write home about, but it works well enough. Better than a Pi cluster, though? I think it’d be close. If you’re goal is to run Linux, M1 might not be best solution for now. That assumes you’re running ARM images—I haven’t tried emulating x86, but I hear the performance is abysmal.
shreddit 5y ago
There is a Port of the Linux kernel for M1, so it shouldn't take much longer for distros to be available https://github.com/corellium/linux-m1 https://github.com/corellium/linux-m1

aphrax 5y ago

Which SBC did you settle on? Didn’t realise some had built in ssd storage..

genewitch 5y ago
the odroid H2 has an nvme (or ssd, i forget) m.2 slot, takes SODIMM, and has built in gigabit. for a fully decked out H2 though it's about $300 or so, which starts to creep into "NUC" territory. The good thing about the H2 is it's intel (J5 iirc), which may or may not matter depending on the use case. For a cheaper option, the Atomic Pi has built in MIMO wifi/bt, 1gbit ethernet, a single USB3 port, and <10W guaranteed TDP. Fully loaded the api is about $55. The H2 can use 12-20VDC, the api demands 5VDC, which makes the PSU for the api more expensive.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

I was surprised the M1 was only 6x or so the RPI in performance. I thought it would be much more. I guess the RPI 4 is more advanced than I thought.

jbverschoor 5y ago
Multi core it’s more. And this is just the cpu. Not the gpu, or memory bandwidth and latency or many of the accelerations
flyinghamster 5y ago
The 4 and 400 are among the few cheap SBCs I've seen that have a Cortex-A72. That's probably a big factor in the Pi 4/400 punching above their weight.
BackBlast 5y ago
I use arm servers in production and regularly benchmark them. On my application the M1 is 11x the speed of a rpi4 in single core performance. Ampere Altra running at 3ghz is a bit above 4x a rpi4. Single core. I'm moving to Ampere instances in the cloud.