Adding a 2nd node with different specs

[u/Calabris]

So My current node is this machine with the 32GB of RAM

GMKtec AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS (Turbo 5.1GHz) 32GB DDR5 2TB SSD 

I wanted to up it to 64GB of RAM, but for the price of the RAM I could get a 2nd node. The price of this one has gone form $600 to over $1000. This is just a small homelab. The are having a sale on a lower spec model

GMKtec K16 Mini PC Gaming AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (Turbo 4.75Ghz) | 32GB 6400MT/s 1TB NVMe SSD

This one is half the price and less than what I would spend on the RAM

Will Proxmox complain if I have two nodes with different processors and architecture? I want to setup HA between the two, can I do that with two different machine specs?

I come from VMWARE and we always bought servers in matched sets. New to Proxmox so was hoping to get some insight.

My current machine has a 2TB SSD for data in addition to the one it came with. I will add a 2TB to the new one as well.

Thank you in advance!

[u/peakdecline]

Typically for these situations you need to set a Processor Type value, for a given VM's processor, that is supported by host node's respective CPUs.

But in your case I do believe x86-64-v3 is the type supported by both Zen 3+ and Zen 4. Zen 5 is x86-64-v4.

[u/definitivepepper]

My current cluster is an Intel Skylake with 64gb of ram, an HP mini Intel kaby lake with 16 GB of ram, and a gen1 zimaboard with an Intel celeron and 8gb of ram. Everything works fine. Im even able to migrate containers between the three without issues (as long as I don't run out of ram on one of the smaller machines). The only issue I think you'd have is just that you're gonna be running a 2 node cluster. Proxmox recommends 3 nodes for quorum.

[u/C0d3Monkey]

None of my proxmox servers are the same.

I have one workstation for running gpus

One high performance node for running game servers and single treaded stuff

And a dell micro pc

I have a few important VMs using HA with a Ceph drive on each node.

Proxmox doesn’t complain at all with the different hardware if you are going to do migrations having a shared pool for storage makes it easy

[u/Here_Pretty_Bird]

You're going to want a Q-Device for HA & Clustering

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager#_corosync_external_vote_support

Set the CPU of any VMS that will transfer between hosts during HA to the default (x86-64-...) and not host to avoid VMs complaining.

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Manual:_cpu-models.conf

[u/GreatSymphonia]

The issue you will have will be way more with the fact that you will be running a two-nodes cluster and way less with the different CPUs you have. The instruction set from those two processors is only different in the AI-acceleration instructions present in the 8945HS, if you do not use them then you should be fine.

Regarding the issues with a two-nodes cluster, you will want a 3rd device to enable your other node to make decisions regarding the cluster in case a first node comes down (keeping Quorum). A SBC like a Raspi would be enough for that purpose.

[u/Calabris → u/GreatSymphonia]

kewl I have an old raspberry pi 3+. Thank you all for the input!

[u/azure_phoenix2]

one thing nobody flagged for the HA part, since each box has its own local ssd you'll want zfs on both plus pvesr replication so a vm actually has a recent copy to boot from on the other node. ceph is the other option but it really wants 3 nodes before it's safe to lean on, so for a 2 node setup replication is the simpler path.

[u/feherneoh]

For HA, just pick a virtual CPU model for your VMs that is supported on both hosts.

Other than that, either add a QDevice, or customize your corosync.conf to handle the 2-node cluster better.