July 2026 update

I assembled the stackable Pi case, put the 4 loose Pi5's into it and used zip ties to hold the 80mm Noctua fan to its side. Airflow is better than the other stackable case so I'll need to swap the other case fan out for a Noctua when I get time.

I also rearranged the support nodes so there is one less with the proxy server now also a storage node (it had a USB SSD anyway). This brings Mark Rpi Cluster to:

24 x Pi4 (8GB) as compute nodes
8 x Pi5 (4GB) as compute nodes
2 x Pi5 (4GB) as support nodes

All the Pi4's are running Einstein@home BRP4 work. The Pi5's are also running Einstein@home but have Asteroids@home as a backup project so when they can't get Einstein work they'll run it. One of the Pi5's picked up some Asteroids work which it has now decided to swap out so it can run Einstein again, hopefully it will finish the Asteroids work soon.

 

19 July update
The four older Pi5 passed 1 million credits each for Einstein this week. I have put these four into run-off mode in order to change the fan on its stackable case. It will take a couple of hours to finish their current work.

The newer Pi5's have now got their host average for Einstein up to the older Pi5's which is around 2500 credits. By comparison the oldest Pi4 is on 1.718 million credits but it had a couple of years head-start.

 

June 2026 update

In keeping with the hardware updates, Marks Rpi Cluster is also getting some new kit. I have been buying some Pi5 (4GB) but the resellers are limiting them to one per customer so it takes multiple orders. I'm adding another 4 of them to the cluster. I have ordered one of those stackable things you put them in made from clear acrylic and some metal posts, waiting for it to come from China.

The Pi4's continue processing Einstein BRP4 work. The Pi5's are also doing Einstein BRP4 work but have done a few Asteroids tasks in between. The Pi5's are up to 900M credits for Einstein. It will take them a while to beat the Pi4's which have been running longer. 

 

27th of June update

The stackable Pi Case arrived. All 4 Pi5's arrived and are up and running. The 4 new Pi5's are sitting loose on a table top at the moment. That brings the cluster up to 8 Pi5's for compute. I need to assemble the case which has no instructions so its going to be trial and error.

I had issues with the new Pi5's losing their network connection when plugged into the same switches that the EC12's use. Each EC12 has 12 x Pi4's plugged into a 16 port switch. Each 16 port switch is in turn plugged directly into the router. I dug out an old 5 port gigabit switch, plugged it into a different switch and the 4 new Pi's are connected to it which seems to have resolved the connectivity issue. 

I got a couple of Noctua 80mm 5v fans. I'll attach one to the side so it draws air across the Pis. The Pi5's all have the official active cooling fan/heatsink so its there to help them. There isn't much space between each layer. The other case I have is using a slim 80x10mm 5v fan which doesn't move much air. The Noctua fans are 80x25mm and have a higher airflow. The Noctua fans come with a USB type A adapter cable so I can plug them into one of the Pi5's for power.

 

March 2026 update

Currently the 4 x Pi5 nodes are running Einstein.

There was a debian point release so I need to go through each of the Pi4's and update them before I can bring them online. 

Purchasing the Sandisk High Endurance micro SD cards (yes I use them for the Pi's primary storage) I can no longer get the 32GB versions. It seems Sandisk have moved to 64GB as the smallest size these days with a price increase.

Rpi Imager 2 and Dec 2025 Raspberry Pi OS

I took the opportunity over the Christmas break to upgrade one of the Edge Cluster 12's to Raspberry Pi OS based upon Debian Trixie. They had been running the Debian Bookworm version of Raspberry Pi OS. Unfortunately I ran across a couple of problems.

There is a "design feature" with the Raspberry Pi Imager v2 where the Raspberry Pi foundation have removed the ability to customize images, so one cannot set the host name, user name, password or other settings. Well technically you can but only by writing JSON code for the Imager. I strongly recommend you keep Imager 1.9 if you need this ability.

Coupled with being unable to customize the image the Dec 2025 release of Raspberry Pi OS has changed some boot parameters so one cannot (even using Imager 1.9) customize the image.

For more information you can read the bug report on Github HERE where the developer has closed the bug as "won't fix".

Despite the above I managed (after a lot of attempts) to get 12 new micro SD cards imaged and replaced the existing ones in one of the Edge Cluster 12's. Those 12 Pi4's have been running Einstein@home work since. The Pi5's were upgraded soon after the Raspberry Pi OS based on Debian Trixie became available. That leaves me with another Edge Cluster 12 (ie 12 x Pi4s) to upgrade.

My current install process is to use Imager 1.9 and the Oct 2025 release to image the SD card. Once done and the Pi has booted do an "apt update" and "apt upgrade -y" to get it up to date.