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I have the gd07 and it's a brilliant case. The removable drive cage is a great feature. There are a few downsides. It can be tight to work in, and doing any after-build changes usually requires removal of all the drives and a good deal of pfaffing about. Also, you can't really access or use any front USB ports because of the front flap. Not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of. Apart from that though, I like it a lot. Great flexibility, decent cooling and reasonably well built.

I believe that you can make non-destructive changes using the virt-manager docker container.

Hi @christopher2007 I use both setups. One of my workstations is within 10M of my server (which resides in my attic) so I run multiple HDMI cables and a USB. Thes connect to a GPU and USB adapter in the server, each of which are passed through to the VM. For the other workstation to which I cannot run HDMI, I use the KVM extender. You have the configuration pretty much right, except that this model does NOT connect through your switch or any part of your network. It just uses a single Cate5e (or better) cable to essentially extend the display, USB and audio. The technology is 10BaseT. Check out AvAccess. They are just one vendor, but they have lost of variants. Some use netwrok swicth, some dont. Some include USB & Audio, some don't. They are pretty pricey, but I picked up two sets on eBay for less than the price of a single new one. Yes, they support only one display, but there's no reason you couldn't set up two. Again, I cannot compare to a pi client set up, but our whole family uses the system with the KVM and nobody has complained about any speed or perfromance issues. After all, it's just like a direct connection - theres no software encoding/decoding going on. Maybe not for everyone, but perfect for me.

Hi I can offer some opinion and personal experience; 1. I have replaced multiple systems with VMs. I currently run 2x OSX Workstations, one my own and one for family. Both run simultaneously and have dedicated GPUs, keyboards, mice, displays and sound capability. My system also runs a 3rd Windows VM that's 'headless' in that I access it via SplashTop - it has no GPU or directly connected input/output. I have a couple of additional Windows VMs that I spool up instead of the OSX workstations. So, there are a lot of benefits in replacing desktops. You get lower overall power usage, you get the ability to reallocate system resources as needed. You get to snapshot your system, make whatever changes you need, and revert to the saved version if it doesn't work out. There are lots of other advantages. Disadvantages? If your server goes down, all your workstations go down. If a VM< crashes, there's no hardware button to reboot it, you need to do so via UnRaid. Your idea of having a spare laptop for troubleshooting is excellent and, i would argue, a fundamental requirement. 2. I don't use remote devices as VM clients. Instead, i either have direct cable connections (runs up to ~10M, or use KVM solutions. I've had really good success using AvAccess devices (see my blog here) 3. Cannot comment specifically. The above solution runs >1080p resolution with no latency at all over 20 year old Cat5e network. 4. No comment.

Something I use are these 5.25"chassis designed for CD/DVD Duplicators. Like this one: https://amzn.to/2PH6SDf You could pack that with 3x 5in3 drive cages and have 15 drives in there! Or go for a smaller chassis or old PC case if you need fewer drives.

One thing you don't mention, and worth a try. Are you booting UnRaid in UEFI mode? If yes, try legacy (and vice versa). I found switching from UEFI to Legacy made a lot of issues I was having with AMD graphics passthrough disappear. You can find the setting under Main -> Boot device -> Flash -> Syslinux;

Download IORegistryExplorer and search for your extension by name. If it shows up, it's loaded. Here's me looking for WhateverGreen...

I was originally planning to go with the designaire but came across a lightly used Taichi plus 2950x for a great price. Not very much between them.

I have an Asrock taichi x399 and it’s been pretty solid for for me. See my blog for some build articles and related topics. Feel free to ask any question you might have. if I was doing it again, I might consider a server board with tr4 support.

That Sonnet only has 2x controllers though. The old model had 4x, but it's not available anywhere that I can find.

I cant say authoritatively, but I've had problems in the past trying to run 6 cores where 4 and 8 worked. I think it might be based on the SMBIOS machine type you choose (in clover). If the system didn't originally support 6 cores, it can be challenging to get running.

A few pointers. You might have better luck specifying a number of CPUs more commonly found in actual macs, so 4 or 8, not 6. Also, you might be introducing an error in your XML. Try this - same principle, but less scope for mistakes.; 1. Copy your working 2x Core XML to a safe place 2. Make the edit to add 4 or 8 cpus 3. Open the resulting XML and copy the CPU section to a safe place. 4. Paste your 'known working; xml back in. 5. Take the CPU section from step 3 and paste it over the equivalent section in your 'known working' XML 6. Apply & Start

Or use one of these https://amzn.to/3aJo3Na

It looks like you have tried to pass through a device that belongs in an IOMMU group with other devices. The rule for a passthrough is that the device you are passing through must be in its own IOMMU group, or you must pass through all devices in the same IOMMU group to the same VM. It's usual for onboard devices (WiFi, Ethernet, Some SATA, OnBoard Audio) to be grouped together. You can try to get around this using Bios ACS settings and/o ACS override settings in unRaid, but it's often difficult .

Nope. I added a few more suggestions to my previous post. You could also also search the unraid boot log file for some of those strings. Might offer further clues.