Low Power, Efficient, but Powerful Mini Cluster! #homelab #minipc

I built a small, efficient, but powerful mini cluster using Intel NUCs and it's awesome!

See the kit here:

Want to set these up with Proxmox? No problem!

Looking to se up a cluster yourself? Check out the video and the docs!

Thanks (Red Shirt) Jeff Geerling for the clip!

(Affiliate links may be included in this description. I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.)

00:00 - How to Build a Low Power Cluster
00:18 - Hardware Specs
01:20 - Rack Mounting Intel NUCs
02:17 - Remote Control & Power Control
02:58 - Provisioning the Cluster
03:28 - Why Kubernetes?
03:39 - Automated Install of Kubernetes
04:20 - Kubernetes Policy Management (Today's Sponsor, Datree)
05:46 - Installing a High Availability Kubernetes Cluster
06:51 - Testing High Availability with NGINX
08:57 - Introducing Chaos
10:04 - What Can We Do with a Cluster?
10:35 - How Much Power Does This Cluster Used?
11:20 - What Do I think of a Low Power but Powerful Cluster?

Thank you for watching!

[henrysowell]

I blame you for the fact that I have three Intel NUC 12s sitting in front of me right now 😂

[ccortez]

Chick-fil-A published an article years ago how they used NUCs to put a Kubernetes cluster at each location, one reason is the hardware can easily be bought anywhere as replacement.

[__aceofspades]

I use Intel NUCs all the time, one as my media PC, one as an offsite 'cloud' backup (at my parents home), and two for my kids to use. They are extremely well built and such a great form factor.

[taylorwarren]

This guy is gonna have the most solid minecraft server

[VikingRuls]

Was just about to write that it used to much power, compared to my cheapo 14c server build, but then i remember my "lowest consumption" was with just 1 2.5" SSD and i still pulled about +20W (headless, total from wall 53W, after extensive BIOS tampering). 9w each even with both a high speed and a regular SSD. Impressive!

[Terribleguitarist]

Finally, a setup strong enough to handle the work Excel spreadsheets my company insists on using as massive databases.

[boomer]

NEVER underestimate how much you can get from a mini PC these days.
I love BeeLink PC's. I have a SER7 and it's a tiny beast. Plays all my factory games that I play on PC.

[warmsmells]

Hey Tim, If you have the vPro nuc models, you can use a meshcentral/commander server to control them without the pikvm. Ctrl+P during startup to get to the settings iirc.

[TheCodeMonk]

Been doing my homeland with three 6th gen NUCs for a while. Works great!

[arcadiosincero]

I built my home lab from used Xeons I got off eBay. My electric bill was like $400 a month lol. Obviously I had to shut it down. Maybe I'll resurrect it but with NUCs...

[blazed-space]

I have a Nuc with an i5 and that puppy is a beast

[bobowon]

ok but what do you use it for? every time i see these cluster videos the answer is always "oh for so much" or "i couldn't live without it now i just do all kinds of things with this" and no one ever explains what the fuck you'd use this for

[NetScalerTrainer]

VMware vSAN would be good on this cluster. 64GB per node is essential.

[rtorcato]

the other advantage of using intel over arm is you can heat your home with your server.

[moldisocks]

Use Intel AMT for OOBM instead of dedicated KVM, much easier.

[Vitaliuz]

*Xeons:* _"Aww, that's cute."_

[DanielGloverTheGreat]

The question becomes: what do you do with the kubernetes cluster?

[aaro_n]

I have an old nuc that does okay. I should really put it in place as the main server and use my one and only raspberry pi for something else.

[ZZFilm]

What do you use to track your power consumption?
I’m new to this and don’t recognize that GUI.
Thanks.

[kbqzh]

That's literally my next project after I get my thin client cluster working. The NUCs are already mounted on the rack panel
I think I set the bar too high by trying to get openshift to run and will scale back