Suitable Hardware for HA

Hardware
1

Hello,

I have been running HA on a Rpi4 for a couple of years but it is on its way to Rpi heaven. I was looking at a Rpi5 but then been reading some posts about a NUC’s.

I am currently looking at a used one on eBay

USED Intel NUC NUC5CPYH Intel Celeron 8GB RAM SSD Win 10 WiFi Mini PC for £60. Would this be suitable to run proxmox and in turn HA?

2

I would recommend a NUC5i7RYH over that one as this is the one I use with windows 11 installed on it for my synology surveillance station to run full screen via the monitor I have on the rack and I just run my HA instance in a virtualbox headless instance.

If all you need is HA out of the box then just get a green or yellow instead.

3

I run a Wireguard VPN on another Rpi4 so kind of hoping I could run both on the same box.

4

I connect to my instance when I am out using OpenVPN through my Router so similar setup (android auto does not like the vpn enabled when using bluetooth but works fine via usb).

5

Get a newer NUC where more memory is possible.
Running Proxmox makes it possible to run HAOS along side other VMs, but memory will eventually be an issue with only 8Gb.

6

NUC is not a magic name. There are plenty of other equally useful x64 computers. Often cheaper than NUC too.

7

Personally I would skip anything with a Celeron CPU if you plan on virtualizing, they are quite low end.

2 Likes
8

I’m looking at some mini pc’s too, I’m not a big user. My home assistant is relatively small compared to most, the only other vm would be my vpn.

9

Better go with Intel Pentium at least, if possible an I3 which will be future proof. As you know the software/os requirements increase over years it will be good to buy a decent configuration that is affordable. I am running my HA dev instance on Intel 4th gen I3 NUC very efficiently if it’s a celeron, it may be bit slow. If you are planning for new NUC, then try m70q 4th or 5th gen Lenovo which you will get for same price of NUC but with Memory and SSD included. If you are planning to give a used PC second home, you may go for Dell Optiplex mini 9th or 10th gen I5 at least.