I'm setting up a small cluster with three mini PCs for my home lab, using it for applications like Nextcloud and various databases that need persistent storage. Right now, everything is depending on a main NAS through NFS, but I've faced too many unexpected outages because the NAS keeps failing. I'm looking for a way to replicate data across the drives in my cluster to ensure high availability and redundancy.
Each mini PC has an i5-7500 processor, 32GB RAM, a 256GB NVMe, and a 1TB SATA SSD meant for replication, all connected to a 1Gbps switch due to the lack of faster NICs. I've considered Longhorn and Ceph, but they both suggest using 10Gbps, which isn't viable for me. I also looked into Minio/Garage, but I'm concerned about the limitations of S3 object storage. What would you recommend?
2 Answers
If you've got dual NICs on your nodes, you could consider Ceph by dedicating one NIC for its use, but I'd be cautious if you only have one 1Gbps NIC. I’ve been dealing with latency issues on my homelab because of that. Longhorn is solid, though it won’t give you object storage as you noted.
I'd recommend going with Longhorn! It should work really well for your setup without needing 10Gbps. Plus, it’s pretty user-friendly and can handle your requirements.
Absolutely, it just works well with minimal hassle!
We ran Ceph in production with a single 1Gbps NIC for years without major issues. It performs great with the right configuration; just remember, it’s all about testing to see what fits your needs!