VM or PC to run HS3?

[MNB]

Thanxs, side note re you SONO speaks and unifi; are you using all speakers wired or wireless, or are you using a single wired (master) and all the rest wireless. The reason I'm asking is that if I have more than one Speaker or Boost wired (LAN connect) I get "STP Blocked" messages on the applicable Switch Panel associated with SONO device. Mike

[randy]

By the way love your SONOs solution still works like a champ once one gets their head around the concept, Mike

I am still using the same script and it is working very well here also. Glad to hear it is working for you.

I have added a couple of the new Connect Amps and it was a quick edit of the script to change the UIDs having everything work with the new ones.

[MNB]

It is a 1U rack mount Supermicro SYS-5018D-MF with a Xeon E3-1230 v3, Samsung SSD and 16GB RAM. Running Windows 10 pro. It is headless with IPMI. Windows is automatically logged in, with HS launched by Startup Delayer. I had an SSD fail a couple of months ago, otherwise 100% uptime since 2015.

It is imaged nightly using Macirum Reflect. When the SSD failed it took just over an hour to replace the drive, reimage from the backup and return to operation.

Thanxs Randy for taking the time and explaining I value your input as you've already trotted this ground and have lessons learnt to share. By the way love your SONOs solution still works like a champ once one gets their head around the concept, Mike

[randy]

It is a 1U rack mount Supermicro SYS-5018D-MF with a Xeon E3-1230 v3, Samsung SSD and 16GB RAM. Running Windows 10 pro. It is headless with IPMI. Windows is automatically logged in, with HS launched by Startup Delayer. I had an SSD fail a couple of months ago, otherwise 100% uptime since 2015.

It is imaged nightly using Macirum Reflect. When the SSD failed it took just over an hour to replace the drive, reimage from the backup and return to operation.

[MNB]

Nothing to add except the R710 machines from Dell are great. Relatively cheap and run very well.

Rob, thanxs for the R710 indorsement, I'm in the process of expanding my IT infrastructure e.g. updated my unmanaged switches and router to Unifi equipment USG-4Pro, 3 managed switches with 3 AP Pros) which works great and thought that I would focus on a possible inclusion of a rack mounted server for HomeSeer and Blue Iris app servers not totally understanding the Pro/Con from my current physical mini-computers. Mike

[MNB]

Randy, thanxs for the comeback out of curiosity which SuperMicro Server + processor specs? is it rack mount or standalone? I'm assuming that your running a single instants of Win10 Pro? Mike

[randy]

Randy, looking through the various threads relating to Virtual Machines I came across your post back in 2014, are your still utilizing the same hardware/software solution or have you updated to something else over the course of time? I was toying with purchasing a "High-End Virtualization Server 12-Core 128GB RAM 12TB RAID Dell PowerEdge R710" as I can see the virtues of VM vs Physical machines your thoughts? Mike

I switched to a dedicated SuperMicro server in 2015 running Windows 10 pro. It has been running without a hiccup for 3 years. I have a Hyper-v machine I can bring up as a backup if needed. The dedicated server runs HS3 and my entertainment database and only consumes 30-40 watts. It is more efficient and speedier than the VM was.

[rmasonjr]

Nothing to add except the R710 machines from Dell are great. Relatively cheap and run very well.

[MNB]

I have my HS3 server on a Hyper-V VM. It has been running fine with no issues. Putting the VM on an SSD gave me the same speed as a physical machine. It seems that hard drive latency slows a VM down more than a physical machine. USB is a nonstarter on Microsoft, but is supported with VMWare. Serial pass through can be done with Hyper-V but it is a little difficult. In my application, I communicate with the Z-Troller by a Global Cache IP to serial adapter, but that doesn't require any drivers since it is directly supported by HomeSeer. I successfully used a couple of IP to serial devices with HomeSeer ADIO-100s, but finding drivers that worked reliably took a little work. I have switched to Arduinos with Ethernet shields for my digital I/O and use EDS OW-Servers for OneWire devices. I run Windows 7 on both the VM and the machine, the VM has 4 virtual processors and 4gb of RAM allocated and runs at 15-30% CPU utilization. The Physical machine is a Xeon E3-1230 so there are the equivalent of 8 cores and 16gb of ram. There is no apparent difference in speed between the VM and a physical machine other than the Physical machine seems a little quicker building HS web pages.

The secondary advantage of keeping all device connections as IP is that it is easy for me to bring up another VM or physical machine as a HomeSeer server without moving any physical connections. I have a physical machine with a copy of HS3 ready to bring up in case there is a failure in my primary hardware. Since all of my devices support IPMI, the spare server can be brought online remotely.

The reason I settled on a VM is that I already run a Windows Server Essentials 2012r2 machine 24/7 for local computer backups, for music and video, and to host another VM for my video security. We have used MyMovies to manage and serve up a fairly extensive DVD and Blu-ray collection. It runs natively on WSE. It is a relatively efficient server at about 47-watts, so my energy footprint stays a little smaller if I don't run a second machine for HomeSeer.

Randy, looking through the various threads relating to Virtual Machines I came across your post back in 2014, are your still utilizing the same hardware/software solution or have you updated to something else over the course of time? I was toying with purchasing a "High-End Virtualization Server 12-Core 128GB RAM 12TB RAID Dell PowerEdge R710" as I can see the virtues of VM vs Physical machines your thoughts? Mike

[Moskus]

I'm running HS3 on a VMware ESXi server. Windows 7 with a Belkin Network-USB-hub for USB (Z-stick) and Quatech Ethernet-serial interface for COM-ports.

Very happy with that solution.

[Pete]

Pete, what OS are you using for HS3 that is working with the Lantronix USB-IP device?

Not currently doing HS3 VMs.

Initially tested it for use (HS2) with the W2C box and a USB soundcard as my Digi USB Anywhere didn't work (cuz it was legacy USB).

Testing two different touchscreens displaying in Ubuntu 14.04; one is an older RS-232 Planar to USB connection and second one is a newer wide screen LCD with dual touch capacitance USB connection. Both are working (at the same time with one Ubuntu 14.04 VM).

Today one of two HS2 boxes is running on an lite hardware box; IE: Intel Atom D525 with a mini raid configuration. It does fine with HS2.
Hardware connectivity is to one Digi USB hub to multiple Digi Edgeport 8's and other USB devices. (one USB cable is utilized for everything).

So in a quickie summary mostly have used VMs to test Homeseer functionality but dependant automation is on its own box (IE: > 20 pieces of hardware connecting). That is me and what I do.

[kennesaw10]

Got to admit I have not done a lot of research into them I was just browsing the other day, most odd that it has issues running headless thanks for the pointer.

For my work, I've just deployed 12 Intel NUC's. The i5 variety with 240GB mSata drives. If you set your BIOS correctly, you can run them headless. I love the machines but they're a little pricey by the time you build them out and add Windows and Office.

I've had several in production for 6 months without a hiccup.

[mrhappy]

Even though the NUC has had many reports of not being able to run headless? I'd love to go that route myself but I run my HS PC headless as a rule.

Personally I'm thinking I'm gong to move my file server to a tiny SuperMicro board with one of the new Atoms and take its current, highly overpowered, setup for my HS3 PC (SuperMicro X8sil F O with some 4 core Xeon).

Got to admit I have not done a lot of research into them I was just browsing the other day, most odd that it has issues running headless thanks for the pointer.

[S-F]

Even though the NUC has had many reports of not being able to run headless? I'd love to go that route myself but I run my HS PC headless as a rule.

Personally I'm thinking I'm gong to move my file server to a tiny SuperMicro board with one of the new Atoms and take its current, highly overpowered, setup for my HS3 PC (SuperMicro X8sil F O with some 4 core Xeon).

[mrhappy]

Thanks for the help. I can throw together a dedicated pc then. I wanted to go fanless with a small ssd, but I fear the old atom processors mostly used in them won't be up to the task of hs3, plugins, and hstouch.

Any other fanless/low power(wattage) solutions available that can easily handle any homeseer related scenario?
I'm not even sure what/how many physical ports(usb/serial/network) I should have to be safe.

I use an old eeeBox B202 with a prehistoric (it should be in the National Museum Of Computing) Atom 1.6GHz processor and I run HS2 and HS3 concurrently with plugins on both (got about 10 or so plugins on HS2 but only a couple on HS3) and whilst it is certainly no power machine it runs them all fine. Once you start getting into CCTV or other intensive tasks I would say you are going to start to get issues - it has been said that the processing requirements for HS3 are actually less than HS2.

In terms of physical ports then that entirely depends on your setup, I have downsized my setup a lot over years and gone from eight serial ports at one time to one now (moving four of them over to Bluetooth ports, not needing the remainder) and with more devices becoming wireless then the ports requirement are becoming less. I would write out a list of connected devices first and certainly go no less than that but there are of course USB hubs, multi way serial port devices etc so it is not game over should you have less ports than you have devices. In all likelihood when I come to change my setup I will just go Intel NUC.