Hardware for 3 node cluster?

[Dirky_uk]

Hi,
I'm looking to update my current Proxmox setup to a 3 node cluster.
Ideally my wants are:-

• 2.5Gb plus 1Gb network. (I will use the 2.5Gb to create a separate Ceph network between the nodes) 1Gb for LAN.
• 64GB RAM
• ideally regular SSD storage.
• Intel Quick Sync (10th Gen proc or greater)
• Low power consumption
• Must be available in the UK

Any ideas folks, maybe in the £400 to £500 range?

 

[Dunuin]

2.5Gb plus 1Gb network. (I will use the 2.5Gb to create a separate Ceph network between the nodes) 1Gb for LAN.

Are you sure 2.5G is sufficient for your needs? Recommendation according to manual starts with 40+10+1Gbit NICs.
3x Dualport SFP+ NICs + 3x DACs aren't that expensive and you don't need a 10Gbit switch.

 

[Dirky_uk]

Are you sure 2.5G is sufficient for your needs? Recommendation according to manual starts with 40+10+1Gbit NICs.
3x Dualport SFP+ NICs + 3x DACs aren't that expensive and you don't need a 10Gbit switch.

Unsure but Ive seen people using it on a 1Gb network. It’s not production by any means so should be ok.

 

[Dunuin]

Unsure but Ive seen people using it on a 1Gb network

I've read a lot of threads where people used 1Gbit NICs. But this was only for testing purposes to learn clustering and not to run any real services and from what I've heard you won't have much fun with such an setup.

 

[louie1961]

Any ideas folks, maybe in the £400 to £500 range?

Any number of 1 liter PCs off of ebay will fit the bill. I picked up a HP Elitedesk 800 G9, with an i5-12500T processor for $490. The Elitedesk has 2 NVMe m.2 slots, and a sata3 2.5 inch slot. it has a built in 1gbe NIC and you can buy 2.5 gbe or 10gbe NICs to go into the FlexIO option port.

 

[louie1961]

BTW, I forgot to mention, that the HP Elitedesk is my main Proxmox node. I installed it to the 2 NVME drives in a zfs mirror. I also have the 10gbe NIC and I love it. Draws about 12 watts at idle. I do not however store any data on this machine. All my data sits on a separate NAS box, via NFS shares.

I also have a GMKtek nucbox G3 as a secondary node. That unit has an N100 processor, 16 gb of ram, and a single NVME drive. I also have a couple of disks attached via USB (not in a raid or anything). I use this machine to host an RSYNC server, which acts as a backup destination for my main NAS and to run Ansible to keep all my VMs updated.

I am really pleasantly surprised how well the N100 does under Proxmox. The G3 has a built in 2.5gbe NIC. You might also consider three of those units for your cluster.