Intel NUC Thunderbolt networking for super low-power cluster?

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billc.cn

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Oct 6, 2017
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I am planning an all-flash virtual SAN cluster, so I need a minimum of two storage nodes with 10Gbps+ between them and a witness node where at least gigabit network. However, I also have a 200W total power budget which limits the node choices a lot.

As an experiment, I built a Xeon E3 1240L V5 server, which uses 33W idle and 51W at full power. It satisfies my power requirements but cost me £450 (w/ 16GB gold bars RAM sticks) after weeks of eBay sniping. It may not sound a lot, but 450x3 is definitely over my budget.

Then, I came across Intel NUCs, especially the NUC7 i5/i7 ones with Thunderbolt 3. I found a couple of eBay deals for complete, used kits with RAM and NVME SSD for <£400 each. They are not only cheaper but use almost half of the energy as well.

The only drawback is the limited expansion, but I found out you can do peer-to-peer networking over Thunderbolt and drivers are available for all major OSes. I hope with one (relatively) cheap Thunderbolt hub on each, I can connect three of them in peer-to-peer mode. (Or falling back to P2P between two and 1Gbe to the witness box.)

Has anyone attempted similar setup or Thunderbolt networking? Do you think it is doable?
 

ideabox

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Dec 11, 2016
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Linux drivers for thunderbolt a flaky, the driver stated last time i tried last year that it should not be used in production. I know its a home lab but just keep that in mind.
The other drawback is only 1 port on each nuc and no Thunderbolt Switch/Hub exists, But you can do direct connect the 2 nodes and witness the other over 1gb.
Another option would be to grab a thunderbolt to pcie box and through a dual port 10gb card in each?

Usually some second hand Thunderbolt2 boxes come up cheap and you can grab a Thunderbolt3 to Thunderbolt2 adapter from apple circa$30.
 

billc.cn

Member
Oct 6, 2017
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Thanks for the insight. I don't worry about the flaky drivers so much, but not be able to interconnect more than two nodes is a significant limitation.

All Thunderbolt boxes I can find on eBay are at least £100 which will push the total cost beyond that of the E3 setup. I have also considered wiring the internal m.2 connector to the outside and put a standard PCI-E NIC on it, but decided it's too much of a hassle.
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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New York, NY
Hmmm...A pair of HP t620 Plus thin clients, a pair of Mellanox x4 single port 10GbE adapters and a length of Twinax?
 

billc.cn

Member
Oct 6, 2017
49
9
8
Hmmm...A pair of HP t620 Plus thin clients, a pair of Mellanox x4 single port 10GbE adapters and a length of Twinax?
I was researching T620s yesterday after seeing the post about it here. The power numbers do look very good, but the CPU seems a bit weak for virtualisation purposes. I guess it could be used for the witness host though.

The biggest problem is the high price/low availability of the Plus model in the UK...