System Requirements for HA VM (CPU Cores)

Installation
1

Hi there wondering if you can help me. I’m trying to choose components for a new build.

I’m leaning towards running Unraid on baremetal, with docker containers for Nextcloud, Plex, Sonarr etc and Home Assistant in a VM.

I don’t have a tonne of experience with VM’s so my questions might not even make perfect sense.

What kind of processor (how many cores) do I need for the HASS VM? My understanding is that when you set up a VM you assign it a number of cores and an amount of RAM which are essentially taken away from the Host OS as long as the VM is running.

I’ve seen it suggested to give the VM 2 cores, if I got a 4 core processor with hyperthreading (eg i3-10100) could I give the HASS VM 1 core/2 threads? How restricted would it be for the HA VM?

I’m just dipping my toes in here, I probably won’t have more than 2-3 “items” set up at least to start. One of the reasons want it in a VM is that I can easily make a copy of it if I decide to split it out onto dedicated hardware.

Would really appreciate if anyone could chime in here

2

2 cores is more than enough to run HA in a VM. Also 2GB RAM should be enough, unless you install a lot of add-ons, especially the ones that require more RAM.

Just start with 2 cores and 2GB ram and monitor how it is used over time. If you need more RAM you can always allocate more RAM, but for quite some time 2c/2g should be plenty.