At last, I’ve completed the physcial bits of my pi cluster. Well, a few weeks ago but still

It consists of,

  • 1 Raspberry Pi 4, 1GB
  • 4 Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB
  • 1 Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB

The current usages is as followed and subject to change;

  • Pi 1 - redpi - a node-red instance with gpu breakout
  • Pi 2 - unused
  • Pi 3 - unused
  • Pi 4 - web proxy + tailscale node for the services
  • Pi 5 - nextcloud and syncthing
  • Pi 6 - home assistant

All but redpi have ssds. I don’t see a reason to move redpi to a ssd right now but it would be a good idea to setup some sort of backup and restore. For now, I can simply export the flows. if it dies then I’d just find another sd card, install everything, import flows.

All pis are hardwired to a nearby network switch. Pis 2 - 5 run on a single 12v 5A supply feeding separate buck converters with usb-c cables on them. They seem stable. the other 2 are on a 2nd 12v supply and use part of that supply to power a usb hub for the home assistant pi and a 8 port HDMI switch.

With the help of Claude.ai, I was able to setup NUT to turn off 4 of the Pis when the UPS battery has run for 30 minutes then shutdown the rest when it’s at 20%. Just enough time for short outages and if it’s off long enough than shutting down the 4 pis will extend the runtime for the rest. Is it needed? Probably not but it’s a fun exercise.

More info tbc…