Virtual Machine as daily driver + NAS ?!

[Amyrro]

Hello everyone

 

I've got a decent PC with the following specs:

- i7-6700K OC CPU

- 16 GB DDR4 RAM

- 250 GB SSD

- 850W Gold PSU

- Z170 Pro Gaming MoBo

 

However, I have 4 x 2TB HDDs + 1 x 2TB SSHD + multiple external HDDs. Shuffling between them is getting difficult. 

I have seen the video Linus made about having a gaming PC and NAS on the same machine. I use my PC for all sorts of things, especially CAD/CAE (least is gaming).

 

Many companies run VMs or their servers. However, I do not know how this is going to fit my use. I could not decide between FreeNAS Vs. unRaid. However, it seems from ym research over the web that unRaid is a better fit for my requirement, although FreeNAS may provide better reliability and access speeds to the drives.

 

I use Asus AI Suite & Corsair Link to handle OC of my CPU. However, I do not know how well a virtualized system would do compared to a local system:

1 - I do not know if a VM would provide me direct access to the hardware like that for monitoring and control or not.

2 - Linus could configure the VM to startup with system startup. However, how well the system would do in terms of VM restarts we system reboot is needed.

3 - I have no experience with VMs, so are my files stored on the VM going to disappear if the VM fails for some reason, or worse, whenever the VM is shutdown ?

4 - If I decide in the future to migrate my NAS to a separate machine with different MoBo and CPU, how am I going to handle this without losing my data of the storage drives, especially if I decided to move to another OS other than unRaid, like FreeNAS.

5 - Is Windows going to detect my Hardware normally, or at least provide the necessary drivers through Windows update, or do I have to cherry pick the drivers I need from the vendors' websites just like in the old days ?!

 

My system is capable of running this configuration in terms of hardware. However, I am reluctant about the stability and functional of the VM compared to the local system, since I have not tried anything like that before.

I am going to through in a GTX 1050Ti & 2 x 500GB SSD for the build if this is going to work fine. But do you think that it is more suitable to have the NAS in a separate box ?!

 

Regards