C8 vs C8 pro, differences?

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127

I try to have a cold spare of "important devices". I had a cold spare for my C7, then my C8, and now I have one for my C8 Pro.

Just like I have a spare ps/motherboard/cpu/memory for my opnsense box, and SFP modules, cables, and a couple of unifi switches. :wink:

It gets expensive, but has came in very, very handy a few times where I simply didn't want to live with a few days turnaround time to get things working.

Back to your other question - I don't know if you can restore a C8 Pro backup to a regular C8. It's a good question, though! If you can, then I'm mad I didn't think of that... I likely would NOT have purchased a cold spare C8 Pro, as I already have 3x C8s (2x unused now)...

128

The only thing I have DATA to compare with is on Maker API... I keep stats on my Maker API status/response times.

On my periodic Maker API speed test I watch fairly closely, average response time improved almost exactly 30% from C8 to C8 Pro. 361ms to 255ms.

Same query/devices in query, same hub software version, just different hub. Obviously I'll be watching it over time (only migrated this morning).

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129

You can find your C-8 to C-* Pro answers here:

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130

No, currently the free migration is for upgrades only. So you can migrate from C5/C7 to C8/C8 Pro, or C8 to C8 Pro. For downgrades, you'd need Hub Protect.

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131

I have hub protect. So you’re saying that if I get a C8-Pro to replace my C8, if the C8-Pro broke i could restore a backup onto my old C8? Connected Zigbee and Z-wave included?

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132

I figured we could use a hard benchmark to compare C8 performance against C8 pro. Having an engineering setup with full OS access, I grabbed a copy of the original DaCapo Benchmark Suite. The suite "consists of a set of open source, real world applications with non-trivial memory loads" and takes long enough to run to make a meaningful, if low tech comparison.

Because it's a headless environment, I had to skip a few failing tests from the suite. Here's the full script showing tests that ran and counted towards the final number:

date
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar avrora > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar fop > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar h2 > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar jython > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar luindex > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar lusearch > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar pmd > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar sunflow > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar tomcat > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar tradebeans > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar tradesoap > /dev/null 2>&1
java -jar dacapo-9.12-bach.jar xalan > /dev/null 2>&1
date

This is the script's output on a C8 pro:

$ ./run_benchmark.sh 
Sun Jan 28 19:07:59 UTC 2024
Sun Jan 28 19:15:16 UTC 2024
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_max_freq
2016000

Same on the C8:

$ ./run_benchmark.sh 
Sun Jan 28 19:08:39 UTC 2024
Sun Jan 28 19:22:41 UTC 2024
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_max_freq
1416000

Both hubs run at full speed, with C8 taking 14:02 to complete all benchmarks and C8 pro taking 7:17. That puts C8 pro's time at 51.9% of C8's time. That number is in line with our experience of C8 pro booting in about half the time of the C8.

Hopefully, this comparison helps!

28 Likes
133

Very nice! We geeks love us some data! Nice to see such a significant performance improvement!

Here is my favorite chart. That extra 1GB of RAM is definitely nice to have available!

image
image2630×1382 143 KB

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134

Woah! That's a tall cliff to stand on, great view from up there I bet. Looking forward to setting up my C8-Pro tomorrow.

We're all gonna get baseball caps w/"Pro" on it, right? :wink:

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135

Just excellent, thanks, Victor!

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136

They have the same radios, so the answer is yes.

The Zigbee radio in the c7 could be backed up, but not restored to. Hence the limitations.

137

Technically yes, but I can tell you for a fact it can't be done today...

Right now a C8, on any firmware, can't see cloud backups from a C8 Pro at all, and thus can't restore from them.

Likely a UI bug or oversight that may be fixed later, as I agree it "should" be able to. But I never like to assume, thus my statement that I don't know, as I don't... Not for sure anyway.

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138

Thanks. I'll hold off on a C8-Pro until it's possible to restore the backups from one onto a C8. Keeping my current C8 as a cold spare is really the cincher for me to justify the purchase.

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139

If restoring from C8 Pro --> C8 is important, I would wait until it is confirmed it can do it in production firmware.

I really expect it can/will be able to do that and it will be added "soon". But I am a "wait until it is released" kind of guy when it comes to purchase recommendations.

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140

Well, my standard Maker API speed test settled in at 192ms on the Pro, vs 361ms on the C8.

In the end, an almost 50% improvement on this particular test.

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141

Migrate all devices, including the Zigbee devices?!?!?!

142

It's expected to be able to do that. However, since C8-Pro > C8 is a hub downgrade (free migration is only for hub upgrades), AFAIK you'd need Hub Protect registered on both devices.

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143

C7 > C8 : Yes
C8 > C7 : No, not supported

144

That's not how I understand it.

Yes, you would definitely need Hub Protect on the main production hub (the C8 Pro in this case), but you definitely should not need it on the cold/shelf spare C8 hub.

I guess we just need to just be patient and see what the final/official answer is.

6 Likes
145

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the special case of migrations from an existing "previous version" hub to newer version hub (e.g., C7>C8/C8-Pro, C8>C8-Pro). Upgrading to a newer version hub. Those migrations do not require hub protect on either hub.

146

I was specifically responding to this comment.