Create Cloud storage using Raspberry Pi Cluster

🗃️ Hosting providers
1

Currently, for educational purposes, I am researching on creating a Cloud storage on a cluster of Raspberry Pi 3.
To start with, I have four RPis and would like to test your idea on this small scale setup though I have not found any documentations on how to scale up ownCloud (install/setup) or (NextCloud) on RPi cluster.

Would you be kind enough and let me know if you have any documentations or guidelines that I could follow to achieve my goal.

I currently have, 4 RPis 3, NAS box and the rest of components to build a complete cluster.

2

Nice, I can’t wait to hear your findings.

IMHO, the hardest to scale is the storage, so I’d advise using ceph for
that.

And you could setup kubernetes, and use this helm chart, and you should
be good to go :slight_smile:

I could help on the kubernetes nextcloud chart if needed, but I think
there are some resources out there.


(I advise using MariaDB, with this chart for instance:
https://github.com/kubernetes/charts/tree/master/stable/mariadb )

You’ll find some guide on how to run kubernetes on RasPi:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kubernetes+raspi+cluster&t=ffab&ia=web

The hardest, I guess, will be to recompile every images you find to be
arm compatible, but it will be fine.

I recommend using kubeadm to deploy the cluster.

Maybe this could help:
https://blog.hypriot.com/post/setup-kubernetes-raspberry-pi-cluster/

Good luck! And have fun :slight_smile:

(I recommend k8s, as it is the hottest cluster administration tool at
the moment)

3

I’m thinking of something similar, but as a cluster of Olimex Lime 2.

My line of thought – and I’m totally new to this whole container and cluster shebang – is that it’d make sense to run the DB on one physical node, the PHP & Nextcloud part on another one, and storage on yet another (or several).

Happy to be proven an idiot and learn more about what would actually make sense :slight_smile:

4

Two years later and I just came across this. I just ordered components (Pi’s, PoE hats, a PoE switch, etc) to build such a cluster. Excited to see how this turns out!

5

I’ve been running a cluster using k3s on Pi 4B boards. Current cluster is 4 worker nodes, 1 master, and 1 as a NAS providing storage for PVCs. Some of my stuff is documented here: https://project.kube.thejimnicholson.com. That site runs on the cluster itself, fwiw.

I’d be very interested to see what you’ve come up with for your cluster. I found this site looking for charts/instructions on running nextcloud under kubernetes, that’s a goal of mine.

6

Pardon the delayed response, but how has your Pi4 cluster turned out? Sounds awesome.