I’ve got a new mini PC - N150, 16GB DDR4, 256GB nvme.
I’m just starting off with Home Assistant and my goal is to use this new device just for Home Assistant. The thing is, I’m wondering if there are other services / containers / VMs / etc., that I might want to run “beside” HA (i.e. not service that HA itself is able to run).
My thoughts are that the new mini PC can be a hypervisor running HA and any services needed to supplement HA in its workings. I know I could put these things on another server but I think this new mini PC should be powerful enough for HA and any ancillary services
Even if it was literally just HA running, I probably would still virtualise it as I can create snapshots and all that goodness.
Most likely I’ll try to use voice integration / AI with this too, for things like “turn on the lights” and what have you.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
No home assistant guys here?
The only add ons that I run are:
- File Editor
- Terminal & SSH
- Z-Wave
But I run mine on a Raspberry Pi 4 so all my other services run elsewhere.
Ya, I am going to have other non Home Assistant services running on different hardware. I want to keep HA sort of isolated so if I have to restart home server / home cloud based stuff that the lights, automations, etc. still work.
Basically have a server hardware stack just for Home Assistant and related/required services only.
I’ll figure it out as I go along, have to start somewhere!
For over three years, I have had HA virtualized under Proxmox on a micro PC (J4125, 16 GB DDR, 256 GB SSD, 4x Intel I225-V NICs) with the following configuration:
- pfSense runs in an 8 GB VM with 2 NICs via PCIe passthru
- HA runs in a 4 GB VM
- TP-Link Omada Controller runs in a 2 GB Ubuntu container
- 2 GB left over for Proxmox itself
One NIC is virtualized and shared by Proxmox, HA and the Omada Controller. One NIC remains unused.
I use the following HA add-ons:
- Grafana
- InfluxDB
- MariaDB
- Mosquito broker
- Node-RED
- Samba share
- Studio Code Server
- Terminal & SSH
I use 19 HA integrations, key among them include:
- Enphase Envoy (rooftop solar)
- MQTT
- RainMachine (irrigation sprinkler controller)
- Shelly (about 20 Shelly devices)
- SMTP
- Tailwiind (garage door control)
- Venstar (house’s thermostat)
I have had no performance issues with this set up. HA is responsive to device events and polling. Its UI is crisp regardless of whether the access is from a web browser or the mobile app. I access the UI both from my local network and when I’m away from home via HA Cloud. The whole system will run for months – the only time it rebooted in the past year was when an extended grid outage outlasted the battery backup that protects my home network hardware.
Thanks the for info. I will be using integrations such as UniFi Protect, plugs/bulbs, probably MQTT, Sigenergy Solar, etc., so it’s nice to see a list of what others use what performance they have. Cheers.