Is this machine good enough to run HA

Hardware
#1

Hi, till now(10 days) i was only “testing” HA and now i want to use it for long time. First i installed it on my personal PC with VM but every time i turn off the laptop, HA stopps and now i am thinking of buying some used small pc and transfer HA.

I have some questions, is this machine good enoght -
Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny

  • Intel Pentium G4400T (2.90GHz, 3M)
  • Intel® HD Graphics 510
  • 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz So-Dimm
  • 500gb Sata

What is the best way to install it (i will use it only for HA) again with VM, linux or something else ? I will use thi

#2

That CPU has a CPUMark of 2,335. As a benchmark a Pi4 scores around 900, which means that the CPU is going to be fine.

The graphics card is irrelevant to HA, and you have enough RAM and hard disk space.

A quick Google suggests that it supports UEFI, in which case you can probably flash HAOS directly to it. Your other option is to use Debian and use Docker. Which you use is up to you.

#3

500Gb Sata suggests it might a mechanical harddisk.
If it is then I suggest you look for a SSD disk instead. a small 128GB is often more than enough.
This will make the server use less power, produce less heat and thereby also less noise, and it will be faster to access data on the disk.

#4

Agree with the answers above. In addition to Tinkerer I want to add that HAOS would be my personal recommendation (vs. a self maintained Debian). I’ve recently helped two friends to get their first HA instance running and the Addons feature provided by HAOS makes the whole onboarding experience a lot more satisfying. Depending on your home automations, the provided VSCode Editor, the MQTT broker, or ZHA might just make the difference for you.

That said, of course it depends on your needs and preferences! Hope this was helpful

#5

thank you all, so this pc is enough and if you were doing this, you will change the HDD to SSD 128gb and adding directly HAOS ? :slight_smile: And i will be able to restore the back up from the old machine so i do not integrate everything from the beginning ?

#6

Yes, backups work across hardware - they just contain the configuration, not the software.

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#7

thanks i’m ordering the minic pc :smiley:

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#8

HAOS might not be an option, due to missing drivers.
A Supervised install might be the best way to install it and maintaining a Debian installation is not hard today.
Mainly it is logging into SSH and doing a “apt update” followed by a “apt upgrade” to do regular minor updates. A major update from Debian 10 to Debian 11 is not much different.

And when the issue suddenly arise, then you MIGHT (HA puts some restrictions on the host OS, which you should abide by) be able use the Debian host OS for extra things.
I run 2 MPD instances on it to play my music on ShoutCast devices and on streaming devices too with HA as the controlling UI.

#9

Yeah… don’t follow this advice. It’s encouraging you to ignore the requirements for Supervised, which is already a fragile enough install method, and to actively set yourself up for failure.

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#10

Ok, I should have written might with capital letters, because yes, there is some restrictions on what you can do with the host OS.

But the issue with drivers still stand.

#11

what do you think about this pc which i also find. Sorry for asking but i am not familiar with hardware

Lenovo ThinkCentre M83p
Intel Core i7 4785T
16GB DDR3
SSD: 256 GB SSD

is this better than the previous or not ? :slight_smile: I see better parameters but old RAM type

#12

It’ll be overall faster.

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#13

SSD and ram is better.
CPU is better on paper, but might be overkill in use cases and actually use more power in all cases and thereby need more cooling wilhich might result in more noise from fans.

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#14

Just to be clear, HA does not require a particularly powerful machine. My installation is running in a Docker container on my DS220+ NAS, which is far less powerful than any of the specs posted here, and doesn’t struggle at all.

The DS220+ has a dual-core Celeron J9025 CPU, 6GB of RAM (upgraded from the OEM 2GB), and a load of HDD storage — and HA is running just as one of the many jobs on that box.

If you can get a Raspberry Pi where you are, you’ll save a lot of electricity versus either of the PCs posted.

#15

In Bulgaria used Raspberry Pi 4 is around 150-200 euro, and these mini pcs around 100euro. I calculated that with one of them with 65watts max pawer usage they will consume about 1.2 watts per day at max power. That is around 5-6 euro per month. With Pi it will be less for sure but it is not so much i think

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#16

Then don’t complicate the installation with Docker or Vitrual Machines.
I am running my Home Assistant using the X86 image on an Intel NUC i5. Basically if the PC can run Linux, it can run Home Assistant.

Many have said that my NUC is “overpowered” for Home Assistant, but when a restart only takes ten seconds and my Node Red deploys take two seconds, I appreciate the overkill. And I will never suffer an SD card failure.

Before you install the SSD, flash the HAOS image to it from a PC and a USB docking station. (I use Balena Etcher). It should boot into Home Assistant as soon as you install the SSD. Then copy your existing backup tar file to the backup folder (from the root). When you go to restore, you should see the backup there.

#17

You missed the OP’s point that this will only be used for Home Assistant.

What missing drivers?

#18

Some netcard drivers are not public domain,so they can not be distributed with the Linux image.
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi

#19

any others? WiFi is not recommended for a Home Assistant server. Or almost any server for that matter.

#20

WiFi is not the only drivers that are not being public domain.
You might be able to get it running with another similar driver, but you might also be missing performance, stability and features then.

Many WiFi cards also include the Bluetooth adapter.