this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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A modern multicore x64 with half that RAM would run any workload that cluster could do... faster (carved into a handful of containers or VMs if you needed isolation).
It's a cool project, for fun! It would be a horrible way to do any useful work though. Just the thought of wiring it all up makes me shudder...
Not only a ton of work but likely also much more expensive than you might think even with free boxes. A Gbit USB adapter costs lie $10, you might also need a cable, a switch, maybe (some) PSUs, a power strip, maybe some box to put everything into... And now you suddenly are spending $400-800 on this project just to get a rather lame cluster. Those cores are rater slow, 2GB of RAM is not that much, and 8GB of storage means you also need some kind of NAS.
If you like the project go for it but do not expect this to be a wise way to spend your time and money. 3-4 NUCs are likely less expensive and much more fun.
Plus the entire thing would likely be pulling way more power too, and take up 10-20x the space.
I switched a 6 year server over to a 3 node pi k8s and it runs with half the power. The one annoying thing is building images for Arm arch as a lot of common helm charts aren't built for multi arch builds yet.
£5 for a USB NIC - £100 £3 for a PoE to 5V DC splitter - £60 £2 in short cables - £40 Shelf? £20-50
PoE Switch I already have spare Leaf switch I already have spare Network storage I have in abundance.
Cost wise it's not prohibitive, about £250
I think the biggest worry is, as you say, it might not be the most stable or impressive compute.
£5 x 40 = 200. £3 x 40 = 120. Seems like you calculated with 20 and not 40. This helps to bring the cost down but even for 250 you can at least a single decent NUC.