Looking for advice on what I can use to install ha on

Installation
1

hi all,

I wonder if somebody can help ease my confusion.

I’m looking to change my installation from a pi3 to a mini pc, i’ve had a look and to be honest have no idea what I am loking at, i’m also unsure of teh spec i should be looking for for best results.

here is one that I was looking at is there a better option? am I looking at the totally wrong thing?

my reason is that my pi 3 is really slow… and it’s been overheating, I’ve added heatsinks and a fan but that’s made it really noisy and still slow… so basically i’m looking for a future proofed, faster, quieter option.

any advice?

2

It should work.

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3

For future proofing I’d go Celeron as a minimum, but preferably Pentium or better.

A Pentium PC with twice as much RAM is near that budget, https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?trafficChannel=main&d=y&CatId=0&SearchText=xcy+mini+pc&ltype=wholesale&SortType=price_asc&groupsort=1&page=1

And twice the performance:

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4

Thank you, that has given me an idea of what to look for :smile:

5

I’m currently using a Beelink BT3. I had it sat in a drawer and decided to try it after having micro SD issues on my Pi.

It’s a quad core atom up to 1.8ghz. The main thing for me for low power (2w TDP).

It only has 2gb RAM though which lets it down. Since running Ubuntu server with Hassio and Nextcloud it has about 850mb free RAM.

Other than that it handles it fine. With no delays with automations or loading the interface etc.

Search for Beelink BT3 pro. It has double the ram. Seen them for under 100.

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6

I can recommend something like this Dell Optiplex 9010, or Dell Optiplex 3020

Used older PCs, but with powerful (still) components and will run anything you can throw it in now, or in the future, like Plex, MotionEye or Shinobi for CCTV camers etc. If you can get one with an SSD, that’s great, if not, pick yourself up an SSD and install Ubuntu/Debian as the OS.

I run my setup on an old Optiplex 990, and it’s been running very well for some time now with Plex streaming daily, and Shinobi 24/7 recording cameras.

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7

Great options thank you.

from what I can see I’m looking for a minimum of 4gb Ram (more if I can get it),
a SSD 64gb upwords,
A celeron or pentium processor
capable or running Windows 10 (though it will be running plex and Hassio)
and be as small and Quiet as possible…

thank you :smile: that wil help me alot!

a hunting I will go… a hunting I will go… eee, oo my daddy o and hunting I will go…

I’ll let you know what I find :slight_smile:

8

If you want something powerful and you are looking for great options, try to get a machine that is easily upgradable. Unless power consumption is a real issue you could go with a simple i3 or R3 to do cool stuff. I use an i5 4590 with 32GB of RAM. This thing runs almost anything without a problem. (If you’d get something like this, I’d advise against installing ubuntu as your OS but go with a hypervisor like ESXI, Unraid or Proxmox). This will give you so much possibilities to play with and will future proof (and easy restore) your system in the future.

I’d also advise getting more RAM when possible. For me it seems that since HA 0.107.x RAM usage has gone up quite a bit as it seems to have loaded all resources already (not sure about this though, but I am sitting at around 4GB RAM usage for the HA vm alone. Ofc I have a large setup and this will probably not apply to the masses, but still I’d advise you getting at least a machine that gives you the possibility to easily upgrade in the future.

SSD is a must in my opinion for any OS (or VM with OS). I always say, people spend hundreds if not thousands of euros/dollars on smart home tech. But many of them don’t have a decent device to run it on.
Anyone that will say a rpi will be fine has never tried something actually good (no offense intended).
Look at it like this, your server/nuc/desktop/rpi or whatever HA is running on, is the heart and brains of your smarthome. I personally don’t understand why people pay a lot of money on smart home tech but not on the heart and brains of it. Ofc I understand if you want to try, or if you just want to play around with it. But I see a lot of people with serious setups that run it on a pi. Ofc this is completely up to them (which is the beauty of HA), however I personally would advise against it if you really want to have a reliable smart home in the future.

Edit: For things like these I always say, ‘don’t think what you might need now, think what you might want to do in the future’. It could be that buying something will serve your needs today, however especially when running a hypervisor, the options you can do with it are endless (like running multiple OSes, or maybe run every computer in your house from the same hardware) and all kinds of cool stuff that you might not even think of today. But knowing that when you do find something you’re thinking of, that you are able to do so without having to buy new hardware and that the worst case scenario would only be upgrading some RAM.

Here is a cool example of what a VM can do!

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9

thanks Jim,

this is what I was thinking with future proofing, not quite as far as in the video, just dont have that cash :wink: but it wold be nice …

power consumption is not an issue, though space, noise, temperature and budget are…

I had thought of using an old laptop, but where it may meet most of my needs, its not really made to be running 24/7 so I’m sure i would run into issues there at some point down the line.

but thank you, your points are very welcome, usefull and informative, and will give me more to think about :slight_smile:

Robin

10

Haha unfortunately I dont have that kind of money either to build whats been built in the video. I just shared it so you can see the power of vm’s and the many useful cases you might be able to use them. This was one of them. But more in our own budget you might think of having a nas and ha system in one. Or if you are more windows minded (like I am) you might want to run windows server alongside a HA vm and so on.

Possibilities are endless but anything such as an intel nuc or self built pc would most certainly serve your needs. Also on a good sidenote, if you plan to use plex in the future with 4K video (and transcoding), make sure you get a decent processor. In comparison, my i5 4690 has a hard time transcoding large 4K files.

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