I’ve just ordered ArgonForty’s One M.2 case.
I’ve been using their “One” case for about a year now, which has both active and passive cooling, as well as a power button and extension of the HDMI ports so all the I/O is on one side (the GPIO is all replicated in the top of the case under a cover too).
I highly recommend, the pi basically sits at 40 degrees C, without actually kicking the fan into use unless I compile something extra big in ESPHome.
The m.2 case is basically the same thing with a USB3 to m.2 SATA3 Board in the bottom section of the case.
It should be here next week and I was thinking of doing a thread just walking through the set up (I’m planing to build up my HA setup from the ground up now that I’ve tried and tested all the different things and know how I want it running).
Only catch is that for the automatic fan operation based on CPU temp, and for the power button, you have to install a small bit of software from ArgonForty for it, so you can’t use HassOS. I’m using a Supervised setup on Debian Linux for Home Assistant.
I’ve emailed in earlier this week asking if they’d be willing to share the source code or any API reference so I can try get it working in HassOS exclusively, I’ll let you know how that goes
M.2 SATA SSD Compatibility | Accepts any size of M.2 SATA SSD with Key-B or Key-B&M
So that WD one you linked should work fine (it has a B&M Key, which are those cut-outs in the connector)
Unfortunately it doesn’t support NVMe, but the speed of the USB3 port on the Raspberry Pi limits the extra speed NVMe gives you over SATA 3. I currently have a NVMe drive in a Orico enclosure connected to my Pi. When connected to my notebook computer it cruises a little over 1Gbps, but connected to the Pi it tops out at 650Mbps. And the SATA 3 SSDs top out at ~550 so it’s only a little benefit.
Still screams compared to even the best SD cards
My case appears to be stuck in customs if the tracking is to be believed, so still don’t have it, but I’ll update as soon as I get it!
Edit: just realised the SSD specs are also printed on the PCB in the case:
@FreelancerJ, if you do get the API and get this working for HassOs then please let me know because I should get the ArgonForty One M.2 today as well and would like to get that working as well.
So I actually do have this quite a long way long now, I’ve started a thread on how I’ve been going about it here.
An amazing person already has set up a custom component for home assistant to run the Argon40 case, so that has accelerated this a lot. It took a little tweaking to make work, but it’s there now!
It’s pretty long, I seem to just never stop typing
I think if you really really need the power, go the NUC, since it is more powerful. If you’re not going to push the envelope much, get the Pi, since it only has a limited number of hardware configurations that are well understood, but is very popular, so it is a easier hardware platform for the Home Assistant Devs to support well since they get a lot of info about things when they don’t work, and a lot more performance stats back from people using them too.
Worst case, if you get the Pi and it can’t keep up with what you’re doing, you’ll find it easy to find another function for it so it’s not wasted money. But even with a pile of integrations running and ESPHome, InfluxDB and Grafana, my Pi 4 hasn’t missed a beat.
I have initial support for DeskPi Pro Fan in HassOS here. This is an Add-on Repository.
My DeskPi Pro came with a lame fan which makes horrible noise so I’m waiting on a replacement now. I thought I would leave this here for now in case anyone wants to give some early feedback. It’s available as of earlier today.
Oh, hi @FreelancerJ. I see we frequent the same types of thread. The post above this is essentially the same as the ArgonOne with different commands and instructions. Same basic principal.
Well hi there, small world!
Yeah, the earlier component is really just to expose the fan to Home Assistant and let users decide how they want to go about running it, yours really packs in all the logic into a neat package to run it nice and quietly in the background without much effort to onboard.
I can appreciate both approaches, but I think yours is easily the best for beginners, since the other requires creating a custom component or using HACS.
If only we could get a way to enable i2c from the user interface…
im not sure if it´s allowed here, but the Argon Case at the moment is on sale for 24 € at csv.de
Shipping is 5 €, so I guess it´s quite a good deal
Edit:
This is the old case without the SSD bottom.
Nevertheless, it can be ordered seperatly, but this isn’t cheaper.
Old case:
Micro HDMI
Slot for SD card in the front
SSD housings beeds to be buyed extra
New case:
Fullsize HDMI
Missing Slot for SD card
SSD mounting included
Jumper for always on or not (after power loss)
So, I will test SSD booting withe the old Argon case and the SSD expansion. Sending everything back and ordering new is too much hassle.
Edit 2:
If anyone is wondering how to flash to the M2:
Simply connect the USB Port on the case (that with the M2 card in) to your Computer. A USB A to USB A is needed.
Just a bit of an update. The DeskPi runs quieter, and cooler than the Argon One. The Argon One has tiny vents and makes a lot of noise while sucking air through them. The DeskPi has large vents, larger surface area, and a larger internal volume which contributes to, not only lower fan volume volume, but overall cooler temperatures. The Argon One case tends to feel warm to the touch, the DeskPi feels cool.
This is after 2 months of use with 1 DeskPi Pro, and 1 ArgonOne M.2 (v1) for development purposes, and 1 ArgonOne M.2 (v2) for production purposes.
The primary advantage of ArgonOne is the ArgonOne M.2 (V2) has always-on capabilities. The DeskPi Pro and Argon One (v1) units require pressing the power button after power loss. For this reason, my production machine is the ArgonOne M.2 (V2).
