Intel NUC Recommendation - Upgrade Suggestions

Hardware
1

So I have two intel NUCs that I need to decide between to repurpose and deploy HA OS. I have not decided if I am going to do a debian install vs proxmox.

Here are the two nucs:

NUC5i3ryh this one has 4 GB Ram (DDR3 and max ram is 16GB) and needs a new SSD
NUC6i5syk this one has 8 GB Ram (DDR4 and max ram is 32GB) and also needs a new SSD

So I realize the performance difference between the two CPUs…I have never run proxmox…but assume the NUC6i5 will perform better and that I should max out the ram.

Assume that I should install an NVME SSD…what size do you recommend?

Any suggestions/recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

2

HA doesnt use a ton of storage and external storage is always possible but considering price per GB you can likely get largest drive you find or just set a budget and buy what fits.

NVME/SSD/HDD I dont think will make big difference for this use case ultimately and quality is good for all so I would not concern much about this as long a buying from the big names like WD, Seagate and such. If NUC has seperate slot for NVME and SATA drive using NVME would allow storage expansion or at lease reduce space and heat inside chassis.

If price is same get better of 2 NUCS

3

Thanks for the info, I own both of these NUCs already…I suppose I could get a 500gb or 1tb nvme and test either nuc before buying RAM

4

1TB is certainly overkill unless you want to store, say, all your music, or a lot of surveillance video/pics.

5

Went to my PC boneyard and found a 1tb laptop drive. Decided to spin up proxmox on the nuc5i3 and all appears to be working. Will continue to migrate home assistant to the HA OS vm…if I need more, I’ll move to the other nuc.

Thanks,
Dan