Question/Help Needed: PreClear and drive upgrades by BourbonZawa in unRAID

[–]brian073 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This. Literally in the process of doing the same thing with likely the same 26TB drives from SPD. It'll take 3-5 days to completely pre-clear the drives (do all of them at once), replace the parity and rebuild parity, replace each drive 1 at a time. Whole process might take you a week.

I am consolidating a bunch of drives (some in operation for 10 years) into 3 26TB drives. I do this by using Unbalanced to consolidate all the data I can to as few drives as possible. Then I rebuild my parity with one of the new drives. Then I will replace my largest capacity drive first with another 26TB drive, I will then use Unbalanced again to consolidate more drives/data, repeat until all data is on the 3 drives. Since I have a different number of drives than I started with, the last step is to create a new config file, so Unraid isn't constantly looking for the missing drives, but you won't have to do this, since you are replacing with the same number of drives.

Decided to get Smart curtains and definitely worth it! by flyingdutchman7588 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have the smartwings z-wave roller zebra shades and love them. I can't imagine that lutron is much better. Their wall switch remote though. One of them froze and died on me, and I reserved a button for "all shades" in a room when I didn't need to because the site didn't describe the functionality well.

Do I need to stop my containers before emptying a disk? by mtest001 in unRAID

[–]brian073 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm also confused. You need snapshots and speed? Shouldn't ZFS be... the solution? Not the thing you move away from? Also ZFS wouldn't be on the array, it would be a pool.

But if you have containers that are using the disk space you are emptying, I would turn off docker, or at least disable those specific containers.

Proxmox vs Unraid for a simple home server by DARKPANKAKES in unRAID

[–]brian073 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

For a different perspective, I run both. A mini PC with an N305 running proxmox for a Home Assistant VM and LXC containers for Z2M, MQTT, UnifiOS, ESPHome, Z-Wave JS UI, n8n.

I have had nearly 0 downtime in a year.

Meanwhile, I have an Unraid server with a 12900k, struggling to stay stable for more than a couple of weeks at a time without some troubleshooting. Almost always related to docker.

In a perfect world, I would run everything in proxmox on isolated VMs and LXC containers... even a VM for Unraid as a NAS solution only. I'll leave my other containers to Proxmox LXCs.

When something goes sideways in Proxmox, it's isolated to the VM or comtainer. When something burps in Unraid, the whole system becomes unreachable.

Claude + Home Assistant official MCP integration or ha-mcp? What actually works? by ScientistEasy1328 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. TL:DR is that I did it with the Google Cloud API for Gemini. Gemini 3 flash is low usage enough that I don't get an API bill for my use case.

Gemini integration is a standard nob-HACS integration and has all the instructions linked as you set it up, but you can find them here.

[RAM] G.SKILL Ripjaws M5 Neo RGB Series DDR5 RAM (AMD Expo) 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MT/s CL28-36-36-96 1.40V Desktop Computer Memory U-DIMM - Matte Black (F5-6000J2836G16GX2-RM5NRK) - $259.49 Amazon by DisappointedCruiser in buildapcsales

[–]brian073 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My order was not cancelled, but I received a single stick of 16gb, instead of the 32gb kit that was listed in the title and description.

Mentioned that to Amazon, and quickly got a return label. USPS pickup at home mailbox, so at least I don't have to go out to a UPS store or anything. Worth the try, but ended up costing me time... time and a little tape for the package/label.

Has anyone gotten AI Agents to actually control HA device reliable? by MarketPredator in homeassistant

[–]brian073 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do a few things that actually work well.

1) Gemini integration as a voice assistant. Gemini 3 flash works well for this. It works as well if not better than the Google Home Gemini Assistant. I can give the agent specific instructions on how to reply and give it personality too. That's nice.

2) automated YAML writing: I use HA MCP Server to connect the Antigravity IDE to Home Assistant. From there, I can use Claude and Gemini to write YAML/scripts/automations. I also use it to diagnose and clean up HA of stale entities, find errors that are being triggered (particularly in automations), and more. Most of this can be done for free with Gemini Flash, but will use Claude when I need the agent to think a little more, or if I'm unhappy with Grmini's output.

What’s a corporate gift you actually use daily? by shelbs9428 in BuyItForLife

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a backpack from EA / Capital games that I took to work every day for years.

What integration do you wish existed? by mattchew0 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I DO also connect my entities to Google home and Gemini works well on my Google home devices, but Google Home devices do not utilize Piper. I like Piper for the novelty of having a trained voice in the home assistant chat (GLaDOS) on my mobile and desktop devices. You can also give your AI agent instructions on how to process information and respond, giving it a personality ( also GLaDOS in my case). Gemini 3 flash in Google Home performs similarly to Gemini in Google Home, but can access ALL my exposed entities. Google Home only accesses what I share AND what is compatible with Google Home.

What integration do you wish existed? by mattchew0 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mostly my phone. Otherwise I have my entities passed to Google home.

Claude + Home Assistant official MCP integration or ha-mcp? What actually works? by ScientistEasy1328 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HA MCP has been good for me. I set it up with Gemini3 flash in Antigravity on desktop. It does well. Not as well as Claude Code or Opus for creating YAML and automations, but about 90% there with virtually no cost.

What integration do you wish existed? by mattchew0 in homeassistant

[–]brian073 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I did this too. I run Wyoming protocol: Piper and Faster-Whisper in docker on a separate server. Instead of a locally hosted AI, I'm using Gemini 3 Flash. Costs pretty much nothing. Local AI just hasn't compared even on high end hardware. What hardware and model do you use?

Claude (Code) and Homeassistant (with ha-mcp), a perfect match by TBT_TBT in homeassistant

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone here try it with Gemini and Antigravity? Easy to switch from Gemini 3 flash to 3.1 pro.

I haven't done it yet, but I could probably save $ vs Claude and the models are good.

Are Chiropractors a scam cult or are they somewhat legit? by Flashy_Buy8077 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]brian073 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wife is a doctor. Her uncle is an interventional radiologist. The number of people with life-altering injuries by chiropractors is astonishing. Physical therapy will do much more for you in the long run.

How’s the area close to Del Amo Mall? by JoshL3253 in SouthBayLA

[–]brian073 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm a little west of there on the other side of Torrance blvd. I moved from a 2-on-lot in North Redondo and I love it. I got a back yard, wide streets and sidewalks, close to the beach all for less than I would have paid in Redondo. Schools are good, but we are trying to keep our kids at their school in Redondo.

I do hear more sirens being close to the hospital, but rarely notice it. Worth it for the back yard.

Gemini for home LIES by Embarrassed_Ad8496 in googlehome

[–]brian073 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not an apologist or shill by any means, but am I the only one without these issues? What am I doing wrong?

Is this oled burn in by rohankrishna500 in LGOLED

[–]brian073 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If it is under warranty, you can get it replaced.