I’m completely new to Home Assistant. I’m currently have SmartThings hub, Logitech Harmony Elite Hub, a few Alexa echos and lots of Wifi and Z-wave devices. I’ve seen a few YouTube videos showing how to install on a Raspberry PI. However, I have a QNAP NAS. There’s this YouTube video showing how to install on QNAP as containers or VM. What’s the differences between Containers and VM? Would I be able to use add-ons and plug-in USB devices like Zigbee and other hardware devices to expand the usefulness of HA? What are some considerations I should look at before embark on this journey? Thank you.
How. Much do you know about Linux and open systems server administration
Or what’s colloquially known as Self hosting?
Hi welcome. Your question is hard to answer. The choices to make all depends mostly on your preferences. I for example don’t want to be bothered with all the hassle and extra layers of running in a container or in an VM. I just took a cheap nuc and installed haos on it. Finished quickly, hassle free and all worked in no time. But that’s my case. I too thought about running it on a RPi or on shared HW but just forgo to idea. My advice for you would be to readup about containers, VM’s and the OS you are comfortable with. If you understand the pro’s and con’s of each in your situation then you can make a good descision. But remember whatever you choose you can always switch and import your config. It takes some work but it is not the end of the world
2 Likes
It is important to know there are multiple installation types for Home Assistant. Each comes with pro’s and cons. If you ate not familiar with containers, going the container way is probably not for you.
If you want to be able to follow most tutorials, you’re best served with Home Assistant OS. That cannot be run as a container, but can be run as a VM. And again, if you are not familiar with that there may be challenges, such as difficulty accessing USB devices. Especially when running on a NAS.
Take a look at the installation types to see what you get for each type:
If you choose a version with less features, you’ll need to do, and know, more to reach the same results.
The advice to buy a cheap NUC and go with HAOS is not a bad one if you are serious about embarking on the Home Assistant train. You won’t regret it.
1 Like
Thank you so much for all the helpful suggestions and recommendations, much appreciated!
Base on the Installation page, it seems that the RPi option is the only one that does not require an existing OS to be installed/existed first. Another word, if I purchase a cheap NUC, can I simply run the HAOS on this NUC without installing Windows or Linux first? If so, that would mean the OS already takes up some resources.
Yes, just using balena imager for example to stream the HAOS image on the empty disk
Hi
NUC will probably be an overkill for HA only.
I also started with that, but been using proxmox for a bit over a year and I am SOOOO happy I made the switch.
I suggest to watch a few videos to help you decide. Networkchuck have some decent videos on proxmox and HA.
1 Like
Hm… yes and no. “Yes” at first, but soon “no”. When you start with a couple of sensors etc… there’s almost no hardware that won’t do. But when you develop further, add things, some cameras, a ton of esp modules… then Pi quickly becomes too slow. One of huuuuge differences is compiling esphome. You can get to the top of the hill with 20HP car, but the one with 100+ will get you there quite faster with less chance of dying.
Not to mention that a used nuc will be probably cheaper than new Pi5. It doesn’t have to be latest-and-greatest i9, amost any will do, say one with i3 or i5. 64GB ssd is already more than enough and they’re dirt cheap. As RAM goes i’d install 8GB, not less. From my experiences there are “ram eaters” addons (studio code, firefox…) so with a decent ram reserve you prevent occasional HA crashes.
2 Likes
Agree, definitely nuc over pi. What I was trying to say is that he should investigate if he wants to go the proxmox route on the nuc since it can be used for a lot more than when only HA is on it. For example Frigate container with access to hardware encoding, ESPHome container where you can adjust CPU’s when you know there is a lot of compiling work, easy backup and even cloning if you just want to test something on seperate instance, etc.
Agreed. The question, though, arises: how much HA will slow down when installed in VM instead directly on nuc … ? I have to test that once, but from my experinces VM’s slow down systems quite much. I’ve had HA on synology (inside VM, 918+) and speed boost is huge when going to nuc.
Not enough to matter practically. The nuc is so overpowered for HA you’ll be plenty fast either way inside a VM or bare iron…
1 Like
proxmox is a type 1 hypervisor, and my understanding of that is the VM will be almost the same as if it was directly installed on the allocated hardware.
realy have a look at the networkchuck proxmox video.
haha I am not affiliated to proxmox or networkchuch…
1 Like
Thanks for that info.
I would run it in proxmox, but i have yet to find an excuse for another use of it beside HA… since i have synology nas i don’t need that part, so jury is still out… what are other possible uses of proxmox ( what you guys use it for) ?
I don’t want to stray away too from the topic, but to keep it mostly HA related, I have separate containers for Influx, esphome, frigate with hardware access, zigbee2mqtt, mqtt broker, and then the HA-OS vm. That way it is easier to tinker in one area without influencing another area. Also easy to backup or restore a single area. pi-hole or adguard container for network wide add blocking, *arr suite if you want to monitor big buck bunny releases 
And a few more…it is a whole new world.
After installing proxmox, you can use these communiy scripts to get started with the other areas, including a script to create your HA vm.
2 Likes
Thanks, i’ll look into it, although quick check shows nothing “too interesting” for me which i don’t already have - i have adguard on my router, nas on syno, cameras on dedicated NVR…
One thing perhaps stands out: in over a year since i run HA on nuc it happened twice that HA was acting “funny” - half of things didn’t work… and i couldn’t restart it other way than with power cut. I don’t know what happened, but i guess i could solve that with VM restart inside proxmox.
Perhaps i’ll get a second nuc for a couple of weeks from a friend, i’ll do some research then.
While I would definitely not recommend against proxmox, because it probably is the best way, I do not think it is needed.
As suggested before, there’s plenty to spare on the NUC for other things. But Personally I only run things related to HA on it, like others suggested. These all have addons, with the benefit of easy updates from HACS. So by using HAOS you are pretty much covered.
There is plenty I run that is HA related that I run on the NUC with HAOS on bare metal. The must hungry ones are Visual Studio Server and ESPHome. But then Influxdb, Grafana, MQTT server, etc. I have 22 addons installed (granted, not all of then running). If you want to experiment with local voice, it might even become underpowered.
One could argue the cost of the NUC is a barrier. But automating your home becomes an expensive hobby quick. So you might just as well get used to it. My NUC is only a fraction of the money I spent on smart stuff.
1 Like
You definitely can, plus there’s a couple of other benefits too.
- You can just fire up the proxmox page and get access to the HA console on any browser without needing to set up SSH or mess around with plugging your server into a monitor.
- You can set up automated snapshots of the entire VM inside proxmox. If anything goes wrong and you lose access to your backups all you have to do is restore that snapshot.
- You can choose to run stuff like Z2M and MQTT as individual LXCs instead of HA Addons. That way if something goes wrong with your HA install, then at least zigbee will keep running independently.
Personal recommendation: instead of a used NUC, see if you can get your hands on a used laptop instead. It’s roughly the same price, but you get a rack-friendly footprint, built in keyboard & screen, plus a built in UPS thanks to the battery.
2 Likes
Yes, option of backups inside proxmox seems a good idea, especially now when “something strange” will happen in HA backup world.
I did actually but a used 15 inch laptop a while ago, an x360 model (with touch screen) and i’m using it as my main HA screen (way cheaper and faster than any tablet!). The only problem with “built-in ups” is however that battery goes bye-bye pretty quickly, because it’s constantly being charged.
I’ve managed to build myself proxmox today, although it was a biiig P.I.T.A. It seems that nuc skull canyon i7 is somewhat “too old for this s**t” (in short: major boot-up problems). So, now finally have a working proxmox —> time to play!
1 Like