Hi everyone, I was wondering what would be my best option to install home Assistant on my NUC. I am currently using my NUC WITH Windows 10 and have my Plex server running on it.
I would rather not to have to reinstall my Plex server and just know if I can install Home Assistant OS to run in conjunction with my existing Plex server.
I have no experience with Plex but I assume a lot of data is being passed through the network connection. Extending to that… I had (!) HA installed on my Syno NAS as a docker (!) setup so that I could keep all the other things running too … and all worked fine untill I started to use the surveillance stationn with only 2 camera’s. Had issues on and off due to network traffix so this is when I separated to a NUC.
In short… no clue if you will have the same issues, you can try with a docker (?) and always move-on but if you have high network consuming elements, I personally would separate it.
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You could definitely setup docker or one of the VM hosting offerings for Windows but your best bet is going to be to bite the bullet and move to a virtualized setup. I was in your boat when I first spun up HA and tried having it in VMware player on the existing Windows machine. It was not a good time. I ended up scrapping it, installed Proxmox, and set Windows back up as a VM.
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I know you say this, but the simplest / cleanest solution would be the clean the NUC and install HAOS, then the Plex server add-on. Perhaps there is a way to save the Plex settings to a file to then restore into the Plex add-on, I’m not sure.
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Does the Plex Add on update to newer builds as they come out on other platforms? Or do you have long waiting periods between builds?
Not sure exactly how often it’s updated but it should be pretty close the the main Plex version.
So, it was updated yesterday:
prior to that it was updated on Feb 19. I can’t imagine it being too far behind the main releases, and even if it was, in my experience nothing really changes anyway…
You can back Plex up on your current Windows install, move to Proxmox, set Windows back up, and just restore the PMS files.
Migrating from one install type to a other (e.g. Windows to docker) is a bit more complicated.
No. the simplest and easiest solution is to buy a used Intel NUC and install HAOS on it.
That’s practically what the OP would be doing with my solution… it’s a used NUC and I said to install HAOS on it. My solution doesn’t require a purchase.
Agreed.
I am running my Plex Server and HAOS on two Intel NUC’s. Couldn’t be simpler.
Yeah, I run HAOS on a NUC and a Plex server on my NAS.
When hardware is so cheap I just don’t understand the desire to complicate things with virtual machines etc. You just have to see how many threads there are on this forum relating to people having dramas with VM installs to see this is not a fun solution.
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Virtual Machines, containers, etc. I have no reason to learn how to use these. Let alone introduce potential vectors for USB or network conflicts. (And, yes, I know that HAOS is a Docker image, I don’t have to deal with it).
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Do you get access to hardware features like acceleration when you run Plex as an addon?
I don’t use it but as far as I’m aware it should be exactly the same as any other Plex server install.
An intel NUC isnt that cheap. Mine was 550€ three years ago. To use it only for haos is not worth. I bought a used Lenovo Thinkcentre for 100€ and installed haos there.
But yeah, agree with you regarding VM.
Well the first one I got was ex-demo from a computer store so it was cheap. I later upgraded it to an i7 (so it would handle HD CCTV cameras better) and it was much less than 550 euro brand new (also a few years back now).
My original point to the OP though was that the existing Plex server NUC can be used for both HA and Plex and without messing with VM’s or Proxmox or whatever craziness that would likely lead to USB passthrough or network dramas.
It’s quite hard to mess up networking and USB passthrough in a hypervisor if you don’t try setting up something you don’t know how to (VLANs for example). If you create a single network and don’t use plenty of USB devices it is trivial to set up and manage. Not a good reason to rule out virtualization IMO.
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