Is the Intel NUC7CJYH still a good option? My Lenovo T520 Bios is giving me the dreaded 30 minute shut down thanks to Intel ME protection and after a week of trying everything I am thinking it is time for a change. If I can grab a NUC7CJYH for around $90 maybe it is a better option than an old laptop?
I read on here that it can run Proxmox VE and that is the best way to go? My needs at this moment are HAos and Plexmedia server. Not sure about down the road but maybe some Zigbee or Z-Wave.
Yes nuc’s are viable, I am using a NUC5i7RYH at this time with windows 11 as the baremetal install then have HA in a virtualbox headless instance since I have synology surveillance station running in full screen for my camera feeds on the nuc and use a zigbee smartplug to turn it on and off when the doorbell is pressed or when I want to do so via a button on my streamdeck xl.
I’ve just setup my spare switchbot bot to press the power button on the port I have the skyconnect on when I restart my HA instance since I have an mbeat 7 port hub connected. (I wanted a lazy/automated way to power cycle the skyconnect when I need to).
Specs:
Processor: Dual-core Intel Celeron J4005 CPU with 4 MB cache, up to 2.70 GHz, and 10 W TDP. 4GB Ram upgradable to 8 and comes with 120gb solid state drive.
Is just fine. I’m running a quiet big instance of HA on this processor, with 8 GB RAM, but it never uses that much. Even with almost 100 devices, 900 sensors, 2 continuous camera streams it runs on 20% processor and 33% RAM.
As long as you don’t want to do object detection in high res CCTV streams with something like Frigate it will be fine. That’s a similar spec to my old setup.
I was using Wyze Bridge add-on for 8 Wyze cameras on my Lenovo T520, and I did just order 4 Tapo C120 2K cams and 2 Tapo 2K C210s to start replacing the Wyze cams. The C120s have built-in local AI for detection so I think I will be ok?
Will I be able to use my HAos backups to get back up and running or is it easier to start from scratch if I am going the Proxmox route?
You’ll be using snapshots in a VM based setup, its easier to restore… keep in mind that 2fa breaks when you restore a snapshot at least it does for me (make sure you have your companion app always signed in to reset the 2fa if you use it).
I rotate my snapshots in virtualbox as I make changes I intend to keep and know an update is stable then copy the VM folder to the NAS for live backup rotation of the entire instance including its snapshots.
2fa for the home assistant install when you restore, just something to keep in mind.
You can test a restore from latest backup and configure from there if it works (why we test via non primary instances just to validate a backup works) or you can rebuild fresh if you have issues then make a snapshot of the VM once you are satisfied with the configuration at that point in time.
oh I almost forget that when restoring a snapshot you may in some cases need to redo authtokens for certain things (I find I need to do this for hass agent to reauth it with a new long lived token).
Really the only things I found that break on restore since the rest is just cycling the zigbee and matter devices to resync to HA.
Just making sure all bases are covered based on my experience so far so its smooth for others and they know what to do.
I also run HA on Intel NUC i7 skull canyon. Total overkill, i admit, but i just love the speed of esphome compiling, and i tinker quite a lot with esphome. I used to have HA inside VM on synology for quite a while, but, as said, speed was the main factor to switch to nuc. Restart is also waaay faster than inside VM.
But, i wonder - what’s the difference between Proxmox and installing with linux image (generic x86 x64) (that’s what i’ve done)? I mean - benefits of one or other?
First, why would you run Home Assistant OS as a VM on Proxmox VE 8? Well, Home Assistant is typically not very resource hungry and even old mini-PCs from several years ago would have a lot of left over computing resources that you can run other services. Running Proxmox VE, which is a free hypervisor based on KVM, has a nice management UI and is pretty easy to use. It allows you to run HAOS in a VM, and you can then run other VMs or LXC containers on the same hardware.
If you are new to Home Assistant, not super nerdy, and just want a super reliable and easy to use “appliance”, then don’t go the Proxmox VE route. Just grab a cheap used mini/ultra-mini PC and run Home Assistant OS on it “bare metal” and be done with it. But if you know you want HAOS as a VM, potentially do LXC containers down the road, Proxmox VE is a great (and free) option. Even though Home Assistant can do backups, being able to do a whole HAOS VM snapshot at the hypervisor level can be great for roll-back from failed upgrades or “oh crap” mistakes.
This is exactly why I went the virtualbox vm path with my instance, having that way to restore when its needed after breaking something is just peace of mind being in the IT industry lol.
My end goal is to have Home Assistant and Plex Server running at the same time in VM’s and down the road who know what else… Maybe as a NAS media server for my Plex media so I can take my USB drives off my router? Anyone doing these 3 at the same time?
But either way it looks like running HAos on Proxmox gives a lot a wiggle room.
Looks like TrueNAS might be something I can play with.
Aha… so, basically: if you want something else to do with your nuc except run HA… understood… well, i don’t have plans to run anything else, since i have Synology for that, so i’m good.
Regarding Plex server: i could be mistaken, but isn’t it that HA can also run that?
I just restored a backup from an rpi4 on a nuc and that was pretty seamless. So your current backups are of perfect use provided they contain all you want to migrate. The backup upload did not work for me though, so I breezed throuh the wizard as a new system, installed samba, uploaded the backup and restored from there.
Yeah I had that plug in for a while but never had much luck with it running on my old Lenovo T520. It would keep telling me there was a new version of the PMS available but I could never get it to update and when I checked the status of it it would say it is not running and if I want to start it which then fail. Just seemed like it would be easier to run it separately in its on VM? I mean I have a Plex Media Server on my Shield TV which I currently use but it really is underpowered and the Shield TV sometimes drops my NAS Mapped drive for no apparent reason and since it is connected to my projector in my theater it is a pain to power up the system and check it… especially during the day light hours since it is a short throw front projector.
