Looking for some advice on which hardware to buy for a fresh install please.

[half sable]

Hi,

Looking for some help and advice please,

I've been researching into home assistant for the past couple weeks as i'm planning to move home in the next couple months and want to make my new house as smart as possible.

I'm just not sure what hardware to run it all from.

I'm wanting to run

HomeAssistant
Plex / JellyFin
Pi-Hole
Immich

and potentially in the future when it's a bit more advanced would like to run Home assistant voice locally so would kind of like to plan ahead for that hardware.

so my question is what should I buy to run it all,
below are just examples of my thinking i'm open to any ideas and advice.

As I see the voice assistant wants a N100 minimum, Do i buy a NUC and attach storage drives to it?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GMKtec-processor-computer-Display-Ethernet/dp/B0DMSC8MCR/ref=sr_1_4?crid=TT6YCPRYJK1N&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QAHiIg-WaAi1i-buCRB-qHP4i_XYeqcenh7GyVMCP12SupNF9Mv0LVdVdK6IPRGlIxDHeYPdnq_rF-8NNWQe-RzfQOfc5ivH8zTQBx1sMPJNwW_Ve05BZuDB9CHul5V5oOKjPy7Q8WGg6v8FpTtqDfyiVPBiOQi_JhPxmsvbZ2kh447t1uDIl9iy98TtPv2ldQozpgQM5AUc2oQYekBkd7ZvczNKd8TRf0QVp2VVZEg.ZI5otXvEHOACtigH5zGjAHSg_G_Pr2NKADrLzbmskyo&dib_tag=se&keywords=GMKtec%2Bmini%2Bpc%2Bintel%2Bn100&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1735736593&sprefix=gmktec%2Bmini%2Bpc%2Bintel%2Bn100%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-4&th=1

Do I buy a NAS and run everything on that such as or a synology etc.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/LincStation-N1-Attached-Personal-Portable/dp/B0CRKHQ56W/ref=asc_df_B0CRKHQ56W?mcid=e218686ff0453199826610c3e9f9bcdf&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696386561218&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10506971416420379915&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9192649&hvtargid=pla-2293721962467&psc=1&gad_source=1

or do I build my own pc / server and run Unraid on it?

and last of all do I buy a SLZB-06 CC6252P chip for zigbee or the SLZB-07 is there much of a difference?

Thanks for any help it's appreciated.

[gloomy stag]

For running all that (specifically the immich and jellyfin) I'd look at a NAS. Media files are going to take up a ton of space, and having a set of redundant drives for backing things up, etc. is a good idea.

I went the route of building my own NAS, and run a ton of services on it. Tho I use TrueNAS rather than unraid. The latest version has a nice docker interface with built in app support.

Plus you can run full VMs. Infact, I've got a GPU in mine that I pass through to a VM to run a local LLM that HomeAssistant will use.

That being said, I run pi-hole on a dedicated RPi, and HA on a Pi5 with SSD.

[tawny knot]

There are many ways to set this up. Personally, I went from using multiple servers to just one, plus a dedicated Home Assistant box.

Home Assistant runs on a used Intel NUC (6th or 8th gen). I found it on eBay while searching for popular small form factor machines. Businesses often upgrade these devices, so the market used to be saturated with them—though I’m not sure if that’s still the case. Home Assistant can run on almost anything, but I wanted to prioritize uptime.

My Dell server functions as my NAS, which I also need to keep running 24/7. However, I’m more comfortable rebooting it whenever necessary.

I used to have everything running on a single system, but I’ll never do that again. I don’t want various VMs, Docker containers, and critical home automation software all being affected by parity checks, issues, updates, or random reboots.

At one point, I tried giving everything its own server:

A hypervisor running ESXi on a Dell R720 (I think).

A storage server with a dedicated low-power CPU (which I’m trying to sell).

Home Assistant on its own small form factor computer.

Now, I no longer run tons of VMs, so I got rid of my compute server. On the rare occasion I need one, Unraid can handle it.

[jade scroll]

I agree with @tawny knot - with Rpi and others being so cheap and capable, it's a more robust solution to simply run each major function on it's own hardware. VMs not withstanding, things constantly change and it's those changes that screw up complicated system footprints - so simplify as much as possible. I have blue iris on a dedicated Dell, and run my HA on a rPi4 w/ssd (although now I would use a rPi5 simply because of the availability of a hw pwr button).