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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

It’s more powerful than the RPi Zeros I use on my cluster - kind of same as a Zero 2.

What I’d love to see is a stick that plugs into an Ethernet switch with PoE so you assemble a cluster just by literally plugging nodes to a cluster. For that to work, the best form factor would be a vertical board with a male Ethernet connector on one side so that it’d fit on the horizontal RJ45 on the switch and not be limited by the RJ45’s width.

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That'd be elegant. But. :)

It involves a lot of custom kit (like male right-angle PC-mount 8P8C connectors are contrary to the natural order and don't seem to exist at all), and it misses the mark on the main advantage of adopting the complexity of 802.3af PoE: Useful amounts of reliable power alongside data over inexpensive wiring, at long (~100 meter) distances.

And we're talking about a cluster of, what, a few nodes?

There's got to be a better way :)

Depending on the switch it’d go to 32 easily.

It would be too hot and too expensive. You can skip the copper media and go for an SFP/SFP+ pluggable directly - a full blown computer in the SFP module is yesteryear news. But at this point if you are assembling a cluster of sticks in SFP switch... you can just take some 5 y.o. USDT/Tiny and have a full blown x64 computer with all the power and virtualization you need.

The switches aren’t exactly inexpensive though, but putting a decent computer in a cable is always a good idea. Sometimes also a security nightmare.

Some shit like CRS317-1G-16S+RM is $499 MSRP for a new one. Tons of a decade old 16+ port 10Gbit switches for dirt cheap on the second hand market. You would actually pay way more for a decent x64 box nowadays, even refurb/2nd hand... or a box of a decent SFP plugable computers.

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