I'm looking to build out a set of custom Supermicro servers that we procured a couple of years ago with additional servers to create a new Proxmox cluster. Right now I'm getting quotes from different vendors for the new hardware. What I'm finding, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that the hardware we purchased a couple years ago (CPU, RAM, NICs) has since undergone incremental changes, and that having a server built today means that a CPU from a specific vendor/line will be usually be a different generation. Here's an example:
My question is, how identical do clustered nodes need to be to each other, and how much variance can there be between nodes before things start getting squirrely? Should I press for server specifications that match the specs of our existing hardware?
CPU (ca. 2022): AMD EPYC (Rome) 7302, 3.0GHz, 16C/32T, 155W
CPU (ca. 2024): AMD EPYC (Genoa) 9124, 3.0GHz, 16C/32T, 200W
These CPUs are from the same vendor and product line but aren't really the same. Similarly, our original servers are running DDR4-3200 RAM and the new systems are getting configured with DDR5-4800, since the newer CPUs support it. That's great and all, but my sense is that there's really no advantage to integrating a newer CPU or faster RAM into a cluster that is limited by older equipment. Also, we'd be paying more for the upgrade but I'm wary of potentially creating headaches for ourselves in terms of interoperability between the clustered nodes.My question is, how identical do clustered nodes need to be to each other, and how much variance can there be between nodes before things start getting squirrely? Should I press for server specifications that match the specs of our existing hardware?
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