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Is there much to be gained by using physical hardware like this as opposed to a bunch of VMs? I get that plugging in cables and flashing lights is fun and stuff

Is there much to be gained by using physical hardware like this as opposed to a bunch of VMs? I get that plugging in cables and flashing lights is fun and stuff, but let's say you already have a homelab and are over that. Are there lessons about k8s you can only learn on "real" hardware and not VMs? I thought about this a while back when there was a global shortage of Raspberry Pis. I'd see people with like 8 of them in a toy cluster and thought it was a shame because some people might have a real use for one but couldn't get one. You can use things like docker-machine or Vagrant to easily spin up a bunch of VMs for things like this. Also you can use Rancher to automatically provision a cluster for you (but I guess you won't learn as much that way).

shakiXBT 2y ago
besides having fun with the hardware, I guess true high availability? Having 3 nodes is quite redundant if they're all VMs on top of the same raspberry
nijave 2y ago
Lower power if you have idle stuff running in the cluster but need RAM to run it. Mini PCs also work. These are also portable and quiet so you can stick it in your bedroom and leave it running 24/7 without feeling like you're in a data center (so it's more accessible to people in shared housing)
- yencabulator 2y ago
  But what size of a NUC do you need to have the power of 3 RPis, and virtualize on that for learning? I'd expect just about any decent x86 box to be able to pull that off, and they can be silent / fanless / suspend too. Actually, you might have a better chance of finding a fanless NUC than running latest RPi fanless. My brandless fanless mini PCs from 2016 are doing great. i5, 32 GB RAM etc. For a lot more oomph, get https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?variant=43865372885237 https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?v... (though Ryzen 9 -> fan).
  - nijave 2y ago
    NUCs are a good option but even if they're used they're usually more expensive if you want multi node. I was thinking more these use cases where it's "quantity" over "quality" where you want multiple nodes to test/learn a topology but they end up sitting idle (well, idle CPU and using some RAM)

shakiXBT 2y ago

besides having fun with the hardware, I guess true high availability? Having 3 nodes is quite redundant if they're all VMs on top of the same raspberry

nijave 2y ago

Lower power if you have idle stuff running in the cluster but need RAM to run it. Mini PCs also work. These are also portable and quiet so you can stick it in your bedroom and leave it running 24/7 without feeling like you're in a data center (so it's more accessible to people in shared housing)

yencabulator 2y ago
But what size of a NUC do you need to have the power of 3 RPis, and virtualize on that for learning? I'd expect just about any decent x86 box to be able to pull that off, and they can be silent / fanless / suspend too. Actually, you might have a better chance of finding a fanless NUC than running latest RPi fanless. My brandless fanless mini PCs from 2016 are doing great. i5, 32 GB RAM etc. For a lot more oomph, get https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?variant=43865372885237 https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?v... (though Ryzen 9 -> fan).
- nijave 2y ago
  NUCs are a good option but even if they're used they're usually more expensive if you want multi node. I was thinking more these use cases where it's "quantity" over "quality" where you want multiple nodes to test/learn a topology but they end up sitting idle (well, idle CPU and using some RAM)