Creating cluster android devices and adding it to MacBook Air

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Level 1

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Creating cluster android devices and adding it to MacBook Air

I’ve never built a cluster before, but I’m very interested in giving it a try. I have several old phones from my family (five in total) with varying amounts of RAM: two with 8GB, one with 6GB, and two with 4GB. I’d like to put them to use by creating a cluster and leveraging their RAM and processors to enhance my MacBook’s performance.

While I don’t fully understand how clustering works, my main goal would be to use this setup for specific tasks. For example, I love running local large language models (LLMs), and having additional computational support would be a great help—especially since I want to run these models offline on my MacBook Air.

I’ve come across tools like Xgrid and distcc, but I’m not entirely sure how they work yet. I’m willing to dive into them and experiment if they can help me achieve this. If you have any guidance or suggestions for getting started, I’d really appreciate it!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.2

Posted on Jan 22, 2025 6:42 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

181,396 points

Jan 22, 2025 7:06 AM in response to BlackSafety

I don't believe that there is any way to build a processing cluster with a bunch of Android phones. Xgrid (from Apple) certainly won't; that only was available for old Intel-based Mac servers and has long since been discontinued. I don't see anything to indicate that there's a version of distcc that will work on Android, though I can't say that it's not possible.

I would suggest taking this up in a forum dedicated to Android programming and see if anyone there knows of anything. But even if you can build an Android cluster, it's not going to directly expand your Mac's capabilities as such. All it could do is be a source for offloading specific processor tasks, and I would wager that your Mac probably will process most things faster than a cluster of Android phones would.

Regards.

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