Unraid build

[aakopa]

So I was thinking about using unraid as a base for my next build, as I want to run Linux and Windows side by side.

Parts list:

CPU: i7-6800k

MoBo:  MSI X99A SLI PLUS

Ram: 32GB

How well do you think this would work?

I would be using gpu passthrough with both VMs.

[DiamondShark286]

I assume that is 16 gb of ram for each vm and that is probably the best cpu you could get without going for a xeon because of the extra cores.

[aakopa]

I would go with 16GB to Linux VM and probably something like 10GB to Windows VM as gaming really doesn't need 16GB

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

why unraid and not xen or debian?

[aakopa]

I haven't looked into xen yet, probably should. My problem with debian is that there is too much fiddling around to get it working with gpu passthrough. I prefer solution that does that for me. Proxmox is also something that I have been looking into.

[VolkovBrad67]

This would work fine with UnRaid, I have a similar server for Gaming and Linux VMs. I have a second machine with Proxmox for headless servers (Guacamole, GIT, etc.) but you could run those things in Docker containers from UnRaid instead if you need those, it works very well. The main selling point of UnRaid is that it's fairly easy to use, so if you are new to GPU pass-through / dockers etc. then this is a nice solution. Just make sure you put the GPU you want to pass-through in the secondary PCI-E slot and leave the weak video card in the primary slot, which will be used by UnRaid.

[aakopa]

Do you think using steam in-home streaming between VMs would yield me acceptable gaming experience?

[VolkovBrad67]

I haven't tried using Steam game streaming between 2 VMs so I can't say for sure, but as far as game performance goes, for me the VM with GPU pass-through is pretty much on par with a regular non-virtualized environment. So the big performance drop is the streaming itself, which costs about 35ms, not the virtualization. There are also countless tweaks you can do to improve either memory usage, CPU latency, network latency etc. for the VMs with UnRaid. Those are dependent on your exact hardware and situation so you'll have to try it yourself to know for sure. My guess would be that the unavoidable streaming latency would be the biggest bottleneck, even if you try to use 2 virtual machines, so I would say yes that should give you acceptable single player gaming experience if you are OK with that ~35ms lag.

[aakopa]

On 15.2.2017 at 7:37 PM, Ti133700N said:

This would work fine with UnRaid, I have a similar server for Gaming and Linux VMs. I have a second machine with Proxmox for headless servers (Guacamole, GIT, etc.) but you could run those things in Docker containers from UnRaid instead if you need those, it works very well. The main selling point of UnRaid is that it's fairly easy to use, so if you are new to GPU pass-through / dockers etc. then this is a nice solution. Just make sure you put the GPU you want to pass-through in the secondary PCI-E slot and leave the weak video card in the primary slot, which will be used by UnRaid.

Shouldn't the passthrough work with card in primary slot aswell as long as I give unraid the gpu bios rom file. I am looking into ryzen motherboards and I haven't ran into any yet that have 3 pcie slots properly placed to fit in ATX case.

[VolkovBrad67]

In theory you could try with the rom parameter, it seems to be working for a lot of people. But I personally haven't managed to get it working even after more than a month trying everything possible (multiple ways to dump and use the rom). In any case, you'll have to temporarily put it in the secondary slot to dump the bios, then you can switch it back to the first slot and try with the rom. I hope that will work for you.

[aakopa]

So I was reading about this topic and stumbled upon this post which is stating that with AMD GPUs one would not need to supply unraid with rom file. This would be fantastic for me as I am currently using AMD GPUs. I am probably gonna order the parts when Ryzen lands to Europe, the 1700x looks very promising to me.

[VolkovBrad67]

I would highly suggest you keep an eye on the various testimonies of people actually trying UnRaid with Zen before you order one yourself. We don't have enough info yet on how the virtualization will work with it. I have no doubt that it will eventually be a nice platform for servers such as UnRaid, but I don't know how long it will take before everything works fine. People are still figuring out how to use CPU pinning and choosing the right core / hyperthreaded core combo with Intel CPUs to avoid latency issues etc. so you can expect similar tweaking for Zen.