[ca508]

Author here; RAM is so much more expensive than disk though. Two 500G M.2 NVMes for a RootFS in RAID1 are basically max ~$150 which is I think much cheaper than a single 64G DDR5 ECC RAM module [I don't have exact numbers on me, but ECC RAM is pricey]. It's also a lot harder to debug when things go wrong because you lose the machines state if everything was ephemeral.

We run a thin base OS on the boxes and then VMs on top which we consider more ephemeral. The frequency of needing to update that base OS is v. low.

I think there's a case for building a custom PXE booted RAMdisk image to replace the install though; something like what Equinix Metal (formerly Packet) do with Tinkerbell (https://github.com/tinkerbell); they call it an OS Install Environment, but the idea is a small lightweight linux install agent that can DD a golden image onto the disk (vs. an install each time).

[Nextgrid]

Are you guys still hiring? Would be keen to have a chat about this and see if anything comes out. Sent one of you guys a LinkedIn invite but no response yet.

[ca508]

Yep! We have two roles open https://railway.com/careers#open-positions - Datacenters and Infra that might be of interest to you. Idk if many of us use LinkedIn so not the best way to get in touch. Can I share the email on your HN profile link with our in-house recruiter?

[Nextgrid]

Yes please. The reason I wanted to informally reach out by LinkedIn is that I'm more interested in a chat to see if my skills align and if there's potential, even for short-term work - what you guys are doing sounds cool and I've played around with some of it in the past (thus the Buildroot suggestion - that was my approach to a similar requirement).