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Sptz

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    New unraid setuo

    in Pre-Sales Support

    Posted · Edited by Sptz

    Hi all,

     

    So I've been using an odroid n2 for a while with ubuntu server as a media serving center (plex, sonarr etc etc) and nextcloud all using docker composer. Since my library is growing I've been thinking of moving to unraid due to not trusting using drives in usb enclosures.

     

    I do have a couple of questions, such as, with an nvme ssd used for cache, can that same drive be used for downloads and, say plexdata? (For faster artwork loading etc).

     

    Regarding Mover. Right now, on my current setup everything works perfectly, nzbget and/or qbittorrent download the files and sonarr/radarr move them to the media folder and all is done in realtime and pretty fast. Is it true that in unRaid it's all on a per-schedule basis? If so, why's that and wouldn't that be a big downside to getting content asap?

     

    Secondly, do all drives need to be formatted to start a new array? So I'd need to move my data somewhere to transfer it in afterwards?

     

    Thanks!!

    Should I use NVME drive for cache?

    in Hardware

    Posted

    On 6/23/2019 at 2:47 AM, Marshalleq said:

    One thing to think about is if you're doing any docker automation on NVME, most setups will move those files from the NVME then to the cache and then to the array.  Thus, you are decreasing the lifetime of both flash drives simultaneously, whereas if you just went to NVME for the whole thing, it would be one write because of the way moves on file systems work within a drive.  I am currently considering doing a dual NVME CACHE in RAID-1 setup to get around this.  It's so expensive to get decent endurance ratings on these things, so this is another way to help with that (for me at least).

     

    So, in essence, you're saying it'd be best to have one NVME drive serving as cache + storage for dockers etc?

    VM performance expectations

    in VM Engine (KVM)

    Posted · Edited by Sptz

    3 hours ago, testdasi said:

    FWIW, I could not make my GT 710 to work at all with Catalina VM despite following all the guides.

     

     

    With regards to pass through, the key is to have 2 GPU's. That makes life a lot easier (e.g. to dump vbios).

    Passing through the only GPU would not be in the "straight-forward" category.

     

    The flexibility I'm talking about is, let's say, you need an AMD GPU for the MacOS VM but it has reset issue i.e. if Unraid boots with it, it would refuse to be passed through to the VM. And let's say you have a case space restriction preventing you from putting the AMD GPU on the 2nd PCIe slot.

    • With non-Gigabyte motherboard, the AMD GPU has to be on the 2nd PCIe slot. And in this scenario, it would make it very difficult, if at all possible, to proceed.
    • With Gigabyte motherboard, you can put it on the 1st PCIe slot and boot Unraid to a conforming 2nd GPU on the 2nd PCIe slot. Problem solved.

    Flexibility is like insurance. You won't appreciate how important it is until you need it.

     

    Most (if not all) motherboard reviews and recommendations are based on bare metal scenarios (as well as overclocking).

    Very few of them (if any at all) pay any attention to the impact of some "meh" features (such as the ability to pick initial display output in the BIOS) to a niche use case such as Unraid.

     

    Everything you've said makes absolute sense. Thank you. 

     

    Have you, personally, tried a OSX VM with Unraid?

    Ah, another question. The AMD Reset Bug only happens when the VM is force stopped correct? Or is it a random occurrence?

    VM performance expectations

    in VM Engine (KVM)

    Posted

    I could definitely get an AMD GPU as well but from what I can see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/b91vf5/mojave_gpu_buyers_guide/

     

    It looks like some Nvidia GPUs are natively supported in Mojave/Catalina such as Kepler gen. (730, 760 etc) I think this would translate to here as well right?

     

    Regarding the Gigabyte mobo I guess, yes, I could go for it. I just read that the ASRock I chose, in general, is better and I've also read quite a bit that passing through the GPU that Unraid boots with is pretty straight forward nowadays (I'd be managing Unraid 99.9% of the time from the Web GUI, so having local video output isn't necessary), am I being naive here?

     

    Thanks again for your prompt response.

    VM performance expectations

    in VM Engine (KVM)

    Posted

    Hi all,

     

    I'm very much almost decided in diving into the unraid world and doing my first build specifically for it. Now, the absolute main usage will be both VMs (MacOS, Linux, Win10, but only two of them would be up at the same time ever), Plex server (always direct-play to TV) and random storage.

     

    My plan is to use some absolute cheapo Chromebooks for example, as they're usually the cheapest compared to Win-loaded laptops such as the following or something similar to keep it low-powered/lightweight:

     

    ASUS C423 14 Inch Celeron 4GB 32GB Chromebook - £220

     

    Now, my main point of concern is the VM experience. I've read accounts of people using ParSec and having an excellent experience as it's got incredibly low latency, as well as Splashtop. This is where I need to be brought down to earth on. I work remotely every week and the experience is absolutely great, it feels almost bare metal, so I'd expect the same here, and even better experience. Now, the question is if the setup below would provide such an experience. Say, with each VM having 2 cores assigned and one SSD passed-through to each.

     

    The following build would have a second GPU, I'm still debating in discarding the GTX 1650 and going for two 750s or 1050s as there will be absolutely zero gaming, just a lot of Photoshop work and coding. No media consumption whatsoever, only the regular web browsing / Youtube or whatever. 

     

    Final pricing will most likely be lower as I'll be purchasing some components second hand. I'm still undecided whether to go ECC or not. I can get Hynix 32GB DDR4 2400 at around £80 on Ebay, hence my choice of motherboard as I ASRock supports ECC in case I'd decide to go that route. Would ECC be better to go with even though it's 600mhz slower than the pair listed below?

     

    CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£129.00 @ Amazon UK) 
    Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£66.53 @ Amazon UK) 
    Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£125.58 @ Aria PC) 
    Storage: SanDisk SSD PLUS 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£29.29 @ Amazon UK) - Passed-through to VM1
    Storage: SanDisk SSD PLUS 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£29.29 @ Amazon UK)  - Passed-through to VM2
    Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£33.91 @ CCL Computers) - Cache
    Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 6 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£149.97 @ Amazon UK) 
    Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB ARMOR OC Video Card  (£115.00) 
    Case: BitFenix Phenom M Midnight Black MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (£73.99 @ CCL Computers) 
    Power Supply: Corsair Vengeance 650 W 80+ Silver Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (£65.99 @ AWD-IT) 
    Total: £818.55

     

    I'm just wondering if I'm making a bad mistake and should just invest in better laptops and just one big external HDD and use that as DLNA (forgoing then the Plex experience), though then my girlfriend would also have to discard experiencing MacOS as that's what she's more comfortable with and just settle with a crappy low-powered laptop.

     

    Going for the unraid option is attractive to me as I love building and tweaking/tinkering with computers etc so it'd be a pretty cool project that could certainly be eye-opening.
     

    Build for everyday VM usage and Plex (direct play)

    in Motherboards and CPUs

    Posted · Edited by Sptz

    2 hours ago, testdasi said:

    Things that come to my mind:

    • The Ryzen 7 2700 is sufficient for the use cases you described so no worry there.
    • I use VM over network frequently (albeit not day-to-day) using Windows built-in RDP (client is a Surface tablet also running Windows) and the experience is smooth and simple.
      • I don't know how smooth RDP client app runs on Chromebook so you may want to research a bit on that (e.g. Youtube vids tend to give a good feel).
    • You mentioned "out of the house internet". Your Unraid server should NOT be exposed to the Internet!
      • If remote through-the-internet access is required, you should use a VPN instead (e.g. Wireguard or OpenVPN).
      • Again, your Unraid server should NOT be exposed to the Internet!
    • Given what you said about your experience level, I would recommend getting a low-end GPU for Unraid to boot with (e.g. GT710 is going for less than 30 quids). It doesn't guarantee you can pass through the GTX 1060 to your VM but it sure will make your life much simpler.
      • Gigabyte is a good choice for motherboard with Unraid (especially with new user) because Gigabyte is the only brand on the market (that I know of) allowing you to pick which PCIe (x16 physical width) slot as Intial Display Output (i.e. what Unraid boots with). That will save you from wasting the fast first PCIe x16 slot on the low-end GPU.
    • You need to think very carefully about which VM get a passed-through GPU. Your current choice of M-ATX motherboard (and case) means only 1 of the 2 VM's will get a dedicated GPU (see the above point about having 1 low end GPU for Unraid to boot with). I would recommend ATX motherboard (and case) just to give yourself some flexibility in case things change in the future.
    • The performance mentioned in the quote is about NAS performance of the array, not VM performance. Your vdisks will be stored on the SSD cache pool, not the array so there's no need to worry about that.
      • Also given you only have 1 HDD, it's academic because none of the RAID applies to single HDD anyway.
      • Unraid speed is reasonable for most users (because it is not too far off the performance of a single drive).
      • Data striping gives you higher performance but also comes with risk of total data loss, which makes it great only if you understand and appreciate the risks.
        • There's a ZFS plugin (which Wendell from L1Tech trusts enough to recommend) so push-come-to-shove you still can run a RAID config (albeit NOT recommended due to the risk of total data loss as mentioned above).

     

    First of all, thank you so much for the detailed response. I really appreciate it.

     

    • I never intended to expose the unRAID server to the internet ever. I was planning on using something like Parsec and even run an OpenVPN on unRAID to tunnel directly when outside the local network.
    • I've decided to move to ATX for sure, I wanted to keep it a tiny box but there's tons of small-ish ATX cases so I'm gonna go with that for upgrade-ability. I've seen people mentioning some ASUS boards do allow to boot without a GPU but I'm guessing UnRAID *NEEDS* to have some sort of actual GPU assigned for it to boot right? As that GPU will become unusable for Passthrough. Am I correct in saying this? If so, I'll definitely go with a Gigabyte X470 or B450 then.
    • There will never be gaming of any kind done with this build. So I might even go with two cheaper cards like a 1030 or something like that. It'd obviously be great if unRAID didn't have to "use" one of them, so a GT730 or something would be the third choice just to boot it up then.
    • The 1 HDD situation is just for the beginning as I plan to add more overtime as it's needed. Do you know if M2 SSD drives are natively recognized? As to keep space wasting to a minimum.

    Thanks once again for all the help.

     

    EDIT: Extra question: is there a motherboard that woud allow to "fool" unRAID without the need for a GPU or a G series CPU?

     

     

    Build for everyday VM usage and Plex (direct play)

    in Motherboards and CPUs

    Posted · Edited by Sptz

    Hi everyone,

     

    I'm absolutely brand new to unRAID and managing a server.

     

    I'm planning on doing a build to use for Plex (direct play only), general backups and VM use.

    The VM use is the big one as this would serve, for example, as everyday use for both me and my gf. So both would have cheap chromebooks, for example, and access the VMs for day to day use.

     

    My question is, how reliable would that be from the experience perspective as well as unRAIDs? Obviously out of the house internet is the factor but that's not my main worry. The usage won't be very heavy at all, just a bit of Photoshop etc. So would an AMD 2700 would suffice here?

     

    Build here: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Sptz/saved/xXtgt6

     

    Also, one of the reasons I'm asking this is because of this:


     

    Quote

     

    What are the disadvantages of unRAID compared to similar products?

    No striping. So, although it performs well, better than many NAS solutions, it's generally slower than a RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, or RAID 10, etc. If performance is very important for an array you may be building, then one of those 4 RAID types will be a better choice than unRAID

     

     

    Many thanks in advance.

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