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I'm planning a server that will run UnRaid as a NAS providing a shared file system to Windows Server and Debian Linux VMs. I want the file system (user shares) from the parity-protected array to be available to the Linux and Windows VMs, as well as to other users over the LAN. From this documentation--- Assuming I create the "public bridge" for the two VMs, then I would see the Windows server at it's own IP, as well as the Linux server at its own IP, in addition to the IP of UnRaid's file system. So from another system on the network, I could see these hosts: 192.168.1.1 UnRaid NAS with hostname fileserver \\fileserver\share1, \\fileserver\share2, etc 192.168.1.2 Windows Server VM - Used to access windows server with Remote Desktop, etc. 192.168.1.3 Linux Server VM - Used to access Linux server with VNC etc. The Windows and Linux can mount shares just like any other device, at \\fileserver\share1, \\fileserver\share2, etc. Windows and Linux boot off of a separate SSD drive (or 2 drives) that are their configured a cache-only share - not part of the large Parity-protected array (built with rotating drives). These drives would not be shared on the network. So in terms of drives, the UnRaid system would have: USB Boot Drive for UnRaid itself NVme SSDs for VM boot drives (cache only) (Question - do these need redundancy too? A total of 4, two each for each VM, or two SSD total, each with two partitions, one partiion for each VM)? Parity-protected array (5 or 6 large drives for NAS)

@ChatNoir I'm using the explanations for RAID5 and RAID6 from Wikipedia - " block-level striping with (single or double) distributed parity" I want to have 5 or 6 16 TB drives that will give me 64 T of total storage with fault tolerance. The ability to have one drive fail, hot-swap replace it, and have the array rebuild itself. I have read that I should use an HBA controller to make this work with UnRaid. Is that type of fault tolerance and redundancy not possible with UnRaid?

I'm planning a server based on the Dell T440, with two CPUs. This a home/lab environment, not enterprise. I want to have two VMs - one Windows Server and one Debian Linux. I want UnRAID to manage a RAID5 array with drives to provide storage for both Windows and Linux. I received one suggestion - "you would want to utilize an HBA controller instead of a traditional hardware RAID array as that standard controller would not be able to run UnRAID" This post a few years ago suggested LSI. Is that still the best option? I think the T440 by default has the Dell PERC H730P Adapter. Given two identical processors installed in the T440, Is there any special consideration for memory? I understand the RAM can be dynamically allocated between processors so I'd probably start with two 16G DIMMs per processor for a total of 64G. I'll see how that goes and upgrade to more RAM if necessary. Are there any other considerations for UnRaid use of a two processor server?

As I've looked further, it does appear that Unraid could be the hypervisor, and could support a Windows VM and a Linux VM. Can you point me to a walk-through on how I would set that up so each VM could simultaneously mount and access the RAID array?

I'm new to Unraid. I'm designing a server to run Windows Server and Debian Linux in VMs. I want to create a RAID5 array and have the file system available to both OSs . I want everything to run on one server hardware system. I'm looking at using Proxmox as the hypervisor. If I have a VM for Windows Server, a VM for Debian Linux, under Proxmox, would I also add another VM for Unraid and they would all be peers? Or, would Unraid serve as the hypervisor, replacing Proxmox entirely? Then I would create the Windows and Linux VMs in Unraid, and they would both be able to mount the RAID filesystem?