FreeNAS + Thin client for home use

[mographer]

I'm an motion designer / editor that also does CAD for fun. I'm working on a FreeNAS build to replace my current internal raid. While pricing out E5-2600 based builds I realized it wouldn't cost that much more to spec the system up to also host a somewhat powerful VM or two as well. I'd like to have a computer in my shop that could run CAD software fairly well and connect to my 3D printers, but it's a nightmare of dust, fumes, and general mayhem, so I think a thin client would be an ideal solution given the hazards. I'm assuming I'll need Win10 licenses for each VM. Is there an affordable way of having a thin client or two connect to those?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Freenas is very bad at the thin client thing. For that you want something like esxi or xen server. And the good thinclient solutions aren't cheap(think 10k+).

 

You can try proxmox(uses the same zfs storage) with gpu passthough, but gpu support can be spotty and annoying, and remote desktop isn't perfeect.

 

I think a fanless mini pc would be a good solution here.

[mographer]

So I'm understanding, a fanless mini pc to remote into the VM, correct?

Also I'm not married to Freenas if there's a solution that can give me similar speeds and redundancy.   

[Electronics Wizardy]

52 minutes ago, mographer said:

So I'm understanding, a fanless mini pc to remote into the VM, correct?

Also I'm not married to Freenas if there's a solution that can give me similar speeds and redundancy.   

No, id just use the mini pc to run your program of choice and skip the think client. Thin clients really don't work well here.

[Pixel5]

also consider setting up octoprint on raspberry pis to control the 3d printers that way you have an individual Pi that controls each of them and you get easy access via the web interface.

[Mikensan]

Well you could keep it simple - use Windows 10 Pro + Storage spaces to manage your server, configure RDP and then pickup a thin client form Ebay for about $100 that supports RDP (can't imagine any thin clients that don't) and be done.

 

However I can't speak on behalf of how well video will playback in this scenario - it should work. It's easy to test, since you're going to buy the server either way you can just set it up with Win 10 pro (180 day trial) and use a desktop/laptop to RDP and test.

 

It gets expensive when you want to have multiple clients connect at the same time, then you will need a CAL if using windows. VMware is super expensive.

[dalekphalm]

On 5/16/2018 at 11:30 PM, mographer said:

I'm an motion designer / editor that also does CAD for fun. I'm working on a FreeNAS build to replace my current internal raid. While pricing out E5-2600 based builds I realized it wouldn't cost that much more to spec the system up to also host a somewhat powerful VM or two as well. I'd like to have a computer in my shop that could run CAD software fairly well and connect to my 3D printers, but it's a nightmare of dust, fumes, and general mayhem, so I think a thin client would be an ideal solution given the hazards. I'm assuming I'll need Win10 licenses for each VM. Is there an affordable way of having a thin client or two connect to those?

Which particular E5-2600 CPU's were you looking at? The 2603, for example, only has 4C and no HT, which would be totally fine for a Storage Build, but would be totally insufficient for running any number of decently processor intensive VM's.