Hello everyone,
Looking for help/advice from people who have been in a similar situation.
I bought Dell Optiplex 3020M with 4 core i5, 16GB of RAM, and 240GB SSD for the new HA install. My main question is which of the following five options would be most suitable.
Option 1: Hypervisor (ESXi/Proxmox) + HAOS as a VM. Low overhead in terms of the hypervisor, does not require maintenance and frequent updates, HAOS can be backup/restore via snapshots fast.
Questions are - what to do if I want to run additional docker containers in parallel to HA - I want to add Frigate at one point, once I get Coral - I guess one can use Proxmox, but it uses LCX as containers and then the question is how to properly allocate devices on VM/constrainer, like one USB port with Sonoff dongle to HAOS, then another port with Coral to Frigate.
Also the problem of HAOS storage utilization and getting to understand what causes it, getting access to HAOS console remotely (not possible when you run it directly on metal)
Option 2: as Option 1 with hypervisor but run HA as a container. I guess Proxmox is the only option because I don’t know if ESXi can run containers natively.
This will give more flexibility (I guess), but now management and update of containers, especially HA is getting a problem. With HAOS it is taken care of by the supervisor.
Option 3: Host OS + HAOS as a VM + containers. As Option 1, but instead of a dedicated hypervisor Install Debian on the host, run HAOS as a VM + run some other containers, like Frigate. Not clear what advantages it offer compared to Option 1, plus maintenance of the host OS comes into place.
Option 4: Host OS + HA Supervised + Containers/Frigate. I think that probably it is the most optimal option in terms of resources usage and flexibility but probably will require the most preparation - HA documentation says Supervised install is for ‘experts only’. While I did write a number of bash scripts, I no way consider myself a linux expert. Also, all above-mentioned issues in terms of assigning devices/ports to HA/containers are in place. Plus maintenance of the host OS.
Option 5: run HAOS on bare metal. Least favorite option due to all the above-mentioned reasons and after several months of running HAOS on PI4.
Thanks