Domoticz

Goodmorning all,

Now that the renovation of our house is almost completed, it is time to completely reconfigure Domoticz.

I have some doubts where I can best install Domoticz.

I have a NUC7i5BNK which Domoticz ran perfectly before the renovation, but since a year I also have a mega intel XEON self-build server for multimedia (UNRAID)

Since my UNRAID server does almost nothing all day (only PLEX while watching movies and even during 4k transcoding max 7% cpu and 15% RAM)
so it would also be possible to run UbuntuServer in a VM and install Domoticz here.

What are the advantages in terms of going between NUC or a VM?

My feeling says that separate hardware for Domoticz is better because it can never be disturbed by the processes of the unraid server, but if there are greater benefits in a VM then I am open to that.

(Sorry but no experience with VMS yet)

A VM has it advantages, but seems you using the server with high demands it is also possible your everyting on the server.
I'm using 1 server with a Linux distro and run a kind of packages simultaneously, like Plex, Domoticz, Logitech media server, webserver, mailserver,.....

Hardware is usuallt working a bit better directly than by VM (Drivers...)

A advantge of VM is that you can run multiple server and shutdown just one and keep the other running,

Port passthru would be my main concern on a VM, I know it works as I use it almost daily in my job but it can be a bit flaky somtimes.

If you can get all your USB hardware working with USB Pass-through in your hypervisor, I would see if you can make it so that you have 2 machines running the same hypervisor and make daily backups of your VM on the other machine. This will allow you in case of failure, to relatively easily move over the USB devices and boot up the VM.

I would go for VM. I use proxmox to virtualize several systems on a single Nuc. The advantages are great, no problem at all. Especially when you can use containers for it, like Debian for Domoticz, pihole etc. Reboot of a container takes 1 second.
The biggest advantages in my eyes is the full backup/restore and the fact that you use more of one computer so less waste of money and energy.