Setting Up an RK3588 SBC QEMU Hypervisor with ZFS on Debian

Thev00d00

Or buy a RPI where you get software that actually works and is supported.

ducktective

On software side, RPi (or intel N100 for that matter) is the winner but take a look at RK3588 datasheet [1] and tell me of an Arm or x86 SBC that tops what it offers. It even comes with a NPU lol

[1]: https://www.rock-chips.com/uploads/pdf/2022.8.26/192/RK3588%...

3np

With 32G RAM? Besides, manufacturer diversity is a good thing. "Just buy X" comments need to die.

Havoc

Had similar stability issues on a related board - orange pi 5 plus. Specifically wouldn’t reliably come back up on soft reboot

Also there is apparently an arm port of proximity but haven’t tried it

kumiokun

So far have not seen stability issues on the mentioned 6.12 current-rockckip-rk3588 kernel but time will tell!

Havoc

Hmm. Will give that a go in next install.

Other issue I hit was ssh dropping out (but other ports staying online). Think that may be a software bug though

kumiokun

Author here! Currently taking requests for follow-ups you'd like to see for this budding blog where we will stand up cloud together. (Including you Intel N-series diehards, if you flame hard enough I might write something for you too ;) Seriously though I think both platforms have their use-cases. Here we get more cores per buck and less power per node)

phoronixrly

Kudos for being the author of one of the very few homelab-related posts on HN that does not boil down to just a poor use of a raspberry pi.

I would like to see projects with more, and specifically more diverse and open-source friendly SoCs, based on Allwinner for lower cost stuff (Olimex-produced SBCs), Mediatek for higher price/performance (banana pi, and especially for the WiFi chipsets, it's about time we stopped with the closed Broadcom stuff)

nonrandomstring

Good work. Probably still a bit precarious for me to try at the moment but the idea of low power SBCs with virt capabilities is intriguing as I like to run very thin VMs to encapsulate a single small application.

xyzzy123

I've been running a 12 node opi 5+ cluster for about 18 months on rancher / k3s / armbian and (suprisingly) there's been no jank or board failures, cluster has been rock solid.

I'd never use them in "production" but I think the hardware is good for weird home lab setups. About 72 watts for 96 cores / 192GB RAM (including power for 8 960GB micron 7450s for longhorn). Does need good cooling though.

Before someone mentions it, yes this setup is not worth the money unless your optimisation critera include fun.