I know many of you may be wondering if you should get one of these, and if they can be used to create a cheaper cluster than RPi4s. I try to answer that as well as talk about my experience with the RPi Zero and how quick it is with Go and Node.js compared to the older generation.
Are you running Zeros now or other models? What would you run on an RPi Zero 2?
My dream device for clustering is dual core 1Ghz+, 1GB ddr4 (ddr3 in a pinch) and wired Gb ethernet. In bulk (where bulk ~ 100) price $5-10. Some of the allwinner and rockchip based pi clones get close but price is a lot more.
For qty 1 @ $30 you get 2GB and 4 cores, you could put 2 more ethernet ports on the PCIe port for a total of 3. That gets you into the same-ish performance regime.
I am all for aggregates of low end compute, but I think something with more processing power and more PCIe lanes would scale better.
Just a question on pi clustering in general. Is there an advantage vs buying a single more powerful computer, or a few powerful machines instead of a dozen+ pis?
The big difference is number of cores you have to work with, and to a lesser extent the amount of RAM. For say 800€ you can get probably a 4 core CPU, maybe 8. I guess 8GB RAM? Or you can get 10 raspberry pi 4s for a total of 40 cores and 40GB RAM.
What makes more sense for you will depend on your workload and scaling requirements.
Are you running Zeros now or other models? What would you run on an RPi Zero 2?