Unraid System

[ProfoundGames]

Hey guys, 

 

I have some questions, I was planning of running unraid because I want to run 3 machines from a threadripper 1950x, Haven't bought anything, because I want to plan everything out first. But need some help.

 

So my planned setup is as followed:

- 1 Windows machine for gaming

- 1 Linux machine for Development

- 1 Nas machine for file storage.

 

The questions that I have are the following:

- Do I need a GPU for every machine for unraid? Or can I skip that for the linux and Nas machine? Because I'm not planning of doing any gaming there.

- Do you guys think the Threadripper would be suited for this workload? I mean for gaming its decent enough for me. because I have a 980TI that I will keep using. 

- As I mentioned before I dont want to have a GPU on the Linux machine as of now. But If i want to get info machine learning where having a GPU helps allot. can I switch the windows GPU to the Linux machine?

 

Sorry for just asking  the questions here.

If it helps I can compile a PC part picker list for the interested people here

[DrDevinRX]

You don't need a GPU for every VM you deploy, but it is recommended that you use a cheap GPU for Unraid's console output. If you don't mind working through a VNC connection, SSH, or using the built-in VNC client, you don't need to get a GPU for your Linux VM, but it may implore you to get a low-powered GPU as there is somewhat significant input lag using the built-in VNC client. You can easily switch the GPUs that you passthrough to the VMs through the web interface.

[ProfoundGames]

1 minute ago, DrDevinRX said:

You don't need a GPU for every VM you deploy, but it is recommended that you use a cheap GPU for Unraid's console output. If you don't mind working through a VNC connection, SSH, or using the built-in VNC client, you don't need to get a GPU for your Linux VM, but it may implore you to get a low-powered GPU as there is somewhat significant input lag using the built-in VNC client. You can easily switch the GPUs that you passthrough to the VMs through the web interface.

Aahh okay thanks!

So to clearify: I can buy a cheaper GPU for my linux machine, so I dont have the input lag. And I can just switch the GPU to a more powerful one when I need more power in the linux machine.

And for the Nas I can do with the VNC client when I need access to the nas system. where input lag doesn't matter that much.

[Windows7ge]

You could do things this way.

 

Did you consider using something like ESXi as to run all 3 on an even playing field? That way if unraid or whichever other NAS OS you go with failed it wouldn't take down your VMs with it.

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, ProfoundGames said:

Aahh okay thanks!

So to clearify: I can buy a cheaper GPU for my linux machine, so I dont have the input lag. And I can just switch the GPU to a more powerful one when I need more power in the linux machine.

And for the Nas I can do with the VNC client when I need access to the nas system. where input lag doesn't matter that much.

what are you doing on the linux system?

 

All my linux systems connect with ssh and the vnc is only for the first install. 

 

Id also look at proxmox as its much better at running vms and can do the same storage config.

[ProfoundGames]

Sorry I think people mis understand my build. I want to build a Desktop similar to this one: 

Where I have 3 systems in. 

- 1 MS for gaming

- 1 Debian for Programming and Development

- 1 for nas system for mass file hosting for the other 2 machines.

Its not for a server. But thanks for the help!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, ProfoundGames said:

Where I have 3 systems in. 

- 1 MS for gaming

- 1 Debian for Programming and Development

- 1 for nas system for mass file hosting for the other 2 machines.

Its not for a server. But thanks for the help!

what hardware? This is normally a pain to setup.

 

Id stongly suggest just installing windows on the host, then use hyper-v for the linux vms. You can then make a storage spaces volume and share it over the network. GPU passthough can be a pain, esp on threadripper. 

 

 

[DrDevinRX]

For the NAS portion, you don't need to install a third OS. You can just use Unraid itself as a NAS and create shares and map them to the other VMs. Plus in Unraid, you have dockers for other things.

[ProfoundGames]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

proxmox

I have played with that one on a server before. Found the GUI somewhat confusing at first. But I'd get used to it.

 

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what hardware? This is normally a pain to setup.

 

Id stongly suggest just installing windows on the host, then use hyper-v for the linux vms. You can then make a storage spaces volume and share it over the network. GPU passthough can be a pain, esp on threadripper. 

 

 

Hhmm yeah I also was thinking about this, But I sometimes have issues with the keyboard not sending all the keys for the VM when I used VirtualBox. I will think about this option.

 

4 minutes ago, DrDevinRX said:

For the NAS portion, you don't need to install a third OS. You can just use Unraid itself as a NAS and create shares and map them to the other VMs. Plus in Unraid, you have dockers for other things.

That's sick! Didn't know you could run docker from unraid! Just checked it out. very interesting. about the nas bit I had one last question. I was planning to but a hotswappable bay for the 5.25 inch bays. You think that works with unraid? Where I just shove one in, add it to the pool using unraid and its there? Because I want to do backup also to that drive.

[DrDevinRX]

2 minutes ago, ProfoundGames said:

That's sick! Didn't know you could run docker from unraid! Just checked it out. very interesting. about the nas bit I had one last question. I was planning to but a hotswappable bay for the 5.25 inch bays. You think that works with unraid? Where I just shove one in, add it to the pool using unraid and its there? Because I want to do backup also to that drive.

As long as your controller supports hot-swap, it should be fine in Unraid. If you go this route, I highly recommend installing the Unassigned Devices plugin so that you don't need to add the drives to the drive pool and format them and can just create a share with them.

[ProfoundGames]

2 minutes ago, DrDevinRX said:

If you go this route, I highly recommend installing the Unassigned Devices plugin so that you don't need to add the drives to the drive pool and format them and can just create a share with them.

Aahh awesome, thank you and the other people for all the help! I will make a new thread when I gather the parts and start my build  

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 minutes ago, ProfoundGames said:

Hhmm yeah I also was thinking about this, But I sometimes have issues with the keyboard not sending all the keys for the VM when I used VirtualBox. I will think about this option.

Don't use virtual box, use hyper-v. Its built into windows.

 

For remote access, id just use vns or ssh and not the vm console for most uses.

 

Also what type of linux work are you doing, windows has the WSL thing that lets you run linux programs on windows.