unRAID for NAS and 4 VMs?

[Javaan]

Good evening,

please forgive me for asking maybe newbie questions, but I just want to be sure about a solution that I have in mind.

 

I was thinking about creating an unRAID server setup, on which I, and most of my people could/should work. What I was thinking about is the following:

- Analytics VM: virtual machine for crunching numbers with our scraping, analytics and office tools (very large excel tables/models): at least 12 threads
- 2x Office VM, for Outlook, word, internet surfing: 4 threads each. These VM's are accessed via laptops, as my people are mainly onsite with customers, and I want to screen off their environments completely
- unRAID: 2 threads
- NAS: 2 threads
- and finally, for my spare time: Gaming VM: 8 threads

 

Two people who work remote use their laptop, and access my existing network and NAS via VPN. The current workstation for calculations is being used by all, if big models must be calculated (also via remote desktop), they book slots.

 

As a setup, was thinking about this setup:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xsv2Bb

 

I have a big Synology NAS with more than sufficient storage available. It can be accessed over the network and is no bottleneck whatsoever. Normally, I would skip the NAS function of the server. However, I think it might be handy to have more "local" storage (2x M.2 for cache, the rest for storage), but I have a question about this: 

At what speeds will local users access the local unRAID NAS? If I will allocate a network adapter to it, will traffic automatically pass through this, as with other traffic? In that case, directly allocating the drives to the VM's seems more feasible.

 

In general, on sharing resources: as the regular users have very little system requirements, it it possible to share resources? For example:
- as my people use remote desktop to access the server, does every VM need a graphics card? Can they not share the graphics card(s)?
- I saw that it is necessary to allocate threads. Is it possible for VM to use unused resources (CPU) of the other?
- the same goes for HDDs: I rather have a solution in which I have redundancy on the hardware level, and people can use as much space as long as the total is not exhausted, instead of having unused space everywhere. Can this be done?

 

And finally, if the system is configured, does the admin console still need it's own graphics card?

 

I was thinking about building max. three graphics cards in it, one specific card for the GamingVM and one for the workstation, and a shared one for the OfficeVM's (or even less than three, that would even be better). Only the first two of them have a monitor attached to it. Is that feasible?

 

So, a lot of questions from an absolute beginner. Many thanks for your insights and experiences, I look forward to reading more about the possibilities.

 

Best regards!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why unRAID?

 

Id go with anouther hypervisor like proxmox, esxi or hyper-v here. Much better drive and storage support, and just works better in a buiness enviroment.

 

You don't need a gpu for every vm, a virtual one is normally used.

 

You can share cpu, normally its over allocated.

 

Id probalby stay away from threadripper here, its a consumer platform, and has some pcie passthrough issues. Id go with something like a dual lga 2011 or 2011-3 system. Look up used servers.

 

You probably want ecc here.

 

 

[jj9987]

9 minutes ago, Javaan said:

- unRAID: 2 threads
- NAS: 2 threads

unRAID already has the task of being a NAS, you don't need to (can't, to be exact) allocate cores specifically for NAS.

9 minutes ago, Javaan said:

I have a big Synology NAS with more than sufficient storage available. It can be accessed over the network and is no bottleneck whatsoever. Normally, I would skip the NAS function of the server. However, I think it might be handy to have more "local" storage (2x M.2 for cache, the rest for storage), but I have a question about this: 

At what speeds will local users access the local unRAID NAS? If I will allocate a network adapter to it, will traffic automatically pass through this, as with other traffic? In that case, directly allocating the drives to the VM's seems more feasible.

 

Do you really need unRAID then? Maybe choosing separate computers and devices is better way over thin clients, as you will not have

- a single point of failure

- more potential issues with virtualization

- networking problems, getting thin clients to properly remote

- security/privacy

Local storage speeds on unRAID depend on the load and what kind of drives you use. If the data you need is on SSD, it's faster than when it would be on the HDD.

VMs get 10Gbps link to the host machine, so that won't be your bottleneck. Allocating a physical NIC brings additional overhead.

 

Using a separate computer for each client may be better option in the long run. Every computer will have their own local storage for rapid access and can use the NAS for more long-term storage. You also don't have to worry about setting up the thin client software, getting any kind of issues or whatever.

11 minutes ago, Javaan said:

In general, on sharing resources: as the regular users have very little system requirements, it it possible to share resources? For example:
- as my people use remote desktop to access the server, does every VM need a graphics card? Can they not share the graphics card(s)?
- I saw that it is necessary to allocate threads. Is it possible for VM to use unused resources (CPU) of the other?
- the same goes for HDDs: I rather have a solution in which I have redundancy on the hardware level, and people can use as much space as long as the total is not exhausted, instead of having unused space everywhere. Can this be done?

 

And finally, if the system is configured, does the admin console still need it's own graphics card?

 

I was thinking about building max. three graphics cards in it, one specific card for the GamingVM and one for the workstation, and a shared one for the OfficeVM's (or even less than three, that would even be better). Only the first two of them have a monitor attached to it. Is that feasible?

 

So, a lot of questions from an absolute beginner. Many thanks for your insights and experiences, I look forward to reading more about the possibilities.

- The system itself needs at least one graphics card (any card, just as long as there is one installed in the system) to boot up at all. VMs do not require graphics cards, but they are really slow for displaying anything else than standard console when you do not assign a physical one. Two VMs using one graphics card is not possible.

- Virtualization works on the base that you give a certain amount of CPU power to the VM, usually given in the number of cores/threads. unRAID takes it a little further by letting you choose the exact cores you want to assign to the VM. You can overlap them, but no, unRAID does not support the option of just sharing unused resources.

- unRAID prefers to have native/direct access to the drives, not through RAID disks.

- You can get an old, 10$ graphics card to be the main card that unRAID will use. Or you can do some hacks/tricks, that you can passthrough the main card to the VM. Not familiar with the second option, only heard/read about it.

- Again, can't share one GPU between multiple VMs.

 

As previous commenter said, unRAID might not be the best option here. unRAID is dedicated mostly to be a storage operating system, with the addition of running Docker and virtual machines. Your main objectives here are VMs, so choosing a better hypervisor (not gonna relist the suggestions) might fit your use cases better.

[Robertoal]

i'm with jj9987 here. Everybody has a laptop already, so why use ' office vm's '?

 

Maybe the easiest solution is to not virtualise anything; and just combine the gaming and analytics part? You can use MS RDP for remote login which can be used for multiple users simultaneously.  

So while you game another can use the machine for analytics.

 

@jj9987 using a gpu for multiple vm's is possible (Maybe you meant impossible on unraid), altough i think only quadro's support this? Not really sure.

 

 

 

[Javaan]

On 10/3/2018 at 10:17 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why unRAID?

 

Id go with anouther hypervisor like proxmox, esxi or hyper-v here. Much better drive and storage support, and just works better in a buiness enviroment.

 

You don't need a gpu for every vm, a virtual one is normally used.

 

You can share cpu, normally its over allocated.

 

Id probalby stay away from threadripper here, its a consumer platform, and has some pcie passthrough issues. Id go with something like a dual lga 2011 or 2011-3 system. Look up used servers.

 

You probably want ecc here.

 

 

 

Sorry for the late reply, haven't been able to look further at it. Well, actually, you are right. Being triggered by Linus' 7-gamers-1-CPU-videos, I was considering unRAID, but it doesn't seem to fit. 

[Javaan]

On 10/3/2018 at 10:26 PM, jj9987 said:

unRAID already has the task of being a NAS, you don't need to (can't, to be exact) allocate cores specifically for NAS.

 

Do you really need unRAID then? Maybe choosing separate computers and devices is better way over thin clients, as you will not have

- a single point of failure

- more potential issues with virtualization

- networking problems, getting thin clients to properly remote

- security/privacy

Local storage speeds on unRAID depend on the load and what kind of drives you use. If the data you need is on SSD, it's faster than when it would be on the HDD.

VMs get 10Gbps link to the host machine, so that won't be your bottleneck. Allocating a physical NIC brings additional overhead.

 

Using a separate computer for each client may be better option in the long run. Every computer will have their own local storage for rapid access and can use the NAS for more long-term storage. You also don't have to worry about setting up the thin client software, getting any kind of issues or whatever.

- The system itself needs at least one graphics card (any card, just as long as there is one installed in the system) to boot up at all. VMs do not require graphics cards, but they are really slow for displaying anything else than standard console when you do not assign a physical one. Two VMs using one graphics card is not possible.

- Virtualization works on the base that you give a certain amount of CPU power to the VM, usually given in the number of cores/threads. unRAID takes it a little further by letting you choose the exact cores you want to assign to the VM. You can overlap them, but no, unRAID does not support the option of just sharing unused resources.

- unRAID prefers to have native/direct access to the drives, not through RAID disks.

- You can get an old, 10$ graphics card to be the main card that unRAID will use. Or you can do some hacks/tricks, that you can passthrough the main card to the VM. Not familiar with the second option, only heard/read about it.

- Again, can't share one GPU between multiple VMs.

 

As previous commenter said, unRAID might not be the best option here. unRAID is dedicated mostly to be a storage operating system, with the addition of running Docker and virtual machines. Your main objectives here are VMs, so choosing a better hypervisor (not gonna relist the suggestions) might fit your use cases better.

Many thanks, and sorry for my late and short reply. As said in a previous reply, I was very much triggeredby Linus's videos, but it just doesn't make a ton of sense. For this year, the project is on ice, will have a look at it again mid next year, but in a different direction. Again, many thanks.