live4soccer7

Thanks, I'll wait a day or so and see if he sees the questions.

Quick question. I've been wanting to increase the ram in the server and found a good deal on 4x8gb ecc ram that should work. The on difference is the super micro board, in the specs, says unbuffered ecc ram and this is buffered ecc. Will this matter? Is it also cpu dependent? http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SL7-F.cfm Everything else is a 100% match for the mobo and cpu from what I can see.

Thank you both very much! I will be purchasing the one you guys recommended: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102134 Very much appreciated! I don't know much about them, so I'll take your word for it You guys have yet to steer me in the wrong direction!

Any recommendations on a UPS unit? Unless, it would be advised not to have one for some reason.

Thanks! I'll give it a shot when I have time this week. I'm hoping I can 100% eliminate the extra computer I have running that was doing the tasks that my dockers are now doing.

So the system has been running very well since the last post. I have a couple dockers set up and am very satisfied with everything. Server has been up this whole time without any docker crashes or hiccups. My next debacle is getting a torrent docker. I rarely use torrents, but will if necessary. What do you guys recommend? I see the major ones are rtorrent, transmission, and deluge. I do hope to get it running through a Vpn (I have PIA). What are your recommendations with emphasis out on stability and VPN.

It is an older disk. I think I originally had it in my array and used the pre-clear script on it. I pulled if from the array and replaced with a 4TB drive because I didn't have more room. I forgot i had it until I stumbled across it when looking for a 2.5" drive for the cache that the VMs and dockers will live on. I'm looking at repositories now.

since I hadn't written anything new to the array, I took it offline to see if I was able to change it and didn't see where I could. If I clicked on the disk when the array was offline then it just told me what the format was, but didn't give an option to change it. I'm off to learn about dockers now. Hopefully I can get plexmediaserver, sab, sonarr, and couch going. Any recommendations on the specific dockers that are most stable for those programs? I was in an IRC chat about a month ago and they were talking up linuxserver.io

Mine is setup for 4k aligned as default, however with the 1TB WD drive I found I was not able to change it. I must have to do this through the terminal/cmd?

Thanks!

Thanks, yet again, for the helpful response. I went ahead and chose the XFS file system for the new disk that I added to the array. It is currently formatting. I have BTRFS on my cache drive (use it for the same thing you do since I don't really care much about write speeds). My other drives are on REISERFS. I have some drives that are MRB: unaligned, MBR: 4k aligned, and a couple 4TB drives that are GPT: 4k-Aligned. Does this really matter or does it mostly have to do with hard drive type, size, and manufacturer? I have default set up as 4k-aligned. Bob, thanks again. I've been learning a ton through this thread.

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at it. Quick question, I've been adding all new disks with btrfs and I'm not sure if I should do all MBR 4k Aligned or what? Any input on this. Should i be making all new additions with btrfs?

Today, I was shutting down the array to install a new disk and it was hung up at unmounting/disconnecting shares. I was not sure which one it was. All associated computers that connect to the shares were shutdown, so I have no idea how there was a share that was still active somehow. I was finally able to get a clean shut down by using "lsof /mnt" and then powerdown -v (wanted to see if I could get more info) and it shutdown. Do you guys use the build in power down and take array offline or use a plugin? While searching around online I had seen a couple options for different powerdown procedures. I think I figured out why. The terminal was navigated to a share. Doh. When I ran the lsof command I navigated to root and that's likely why it powered down when I tried the last time.

That's what I was hoping to hear! I've got an SSD in my laptop that I'm going to use because I need to upgrade the one in that to 500GB from ~240.

Is it easy to replace the cache drive with the vms on it? As easy as copying everything or should I use some or of backup utility or what?

I just did a quick google search on "best linux distro for beginners" (lol) and it came up ubuntu. Figured I didn't have much to lose since it takes about two seconds to delete a vm. My current VMs that I have successfully installed Windows7 Ubuntu Yosemite OS X Windows7 and Ubuntu were SUPER easy. The Yosemite install has taken me pretty much all day today, but I was able to grind my way through the install one step at a time. So far it seems to actually be working extremely well. Internet access, VNC connection through mac laptop native vnc, etc... Finding an original yosemite file was quite the chore. I don't know that I really care about graphics/gpu pass through as all the stuff I do on the VMs is easily doable through VNC. I might consider the following card because it supposedly work extremely well with the mac install: Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 My only two complaints thus far, the ubuntu refresh/graphics over VNC is TERRIBLE and I still can't print anything from my windows install. I have not tried from the OSX or Ubuntu. Now on to figure out if I want to use dockers, a vm, or keep my separate mac mini for plex server, sab, etc... Currently the mac mini does a PERFECT job. I don't ever have to restart it or any of the software that is running on it. If that stability can be duplicated with the new unraid server build then I would be pretty excited. I currently run sab, sonarr, couch, plex server and maybe one or two others I can't think of right now.

Can you guys recommend a linux version to install on a VM? I don't have much experience with linux distros. It would mainly be to mess around with and get familiar with the system. Jeez, hunting down an original OS x yosemite image was horrendous. Finally located one.

Windows 7 install was an easy success. I could do a VM with my eyes closed now. I still can not get the printer going. Any ideas? Windows recognizes it, printer drivers all up to date, etc... I hit print and it adds it as a job, printer makes some noise, then the job just disappears and nothing else happens at the printer. It is a network printer and being accessed over wifi. I have the bridge setup as public br0. Quick question regarding hardware being dedicated to VMs, does it free up when the VM is not running or is it kind of reserved for that VM at all times regardless of the VM state. Mostly interested in CPU and RAM. It's looking like I'll need to fill out the rest of the ram banks with the VMs working well.

Yeah, I think I may try that out. I think I'm going to go to windows 7 as originally discussed because you can control the updates. On windows 10 you have to update regardless if you want to or not and being on a VM, I'd imagine that eventually you will run in to an update that will cause compatibility issues at the time of update. I have an XP system running that I strictly use for a couple programs, no internet browsing or anything, and I haven't updated it for years. Guess what, it still works as it did when I installed it. LOL. I also am not able to get windows 10 to print anything over the network. The printer will fire up when I send a job, but then nothing else happens. It is like the job just vanishes after it is sent. I know the printer receives something because it starts warming up. I don't do any crazy/sketchy browsing, so I'm not concerned about those types of sites. VM install order: Windows 7 Try to install OSX - ought to be interesting Linux distro of some sort to play around with

Got ya. I'll probably just leave it on public then. I was just thinking that maybe it could somehow negatively effect the unraid array if a VM were compromised by "nasty" virus or some sort of intrusion.

I changed the network settings on unraid to public vs private (virbr0 or br0). From the unraid wiki: Configure a Network Bridge There are two methods by which your virtual machines can get access to host-based networking: through a private NAT bridge managed by libvirt or through a public bridge managed by unRAID directly. The private bridge (virbr0) is automatically configured when libvirt starts. The public bridge can be created through the Network Settings page on the unRAID webGui. The private bridge generates an internal DHCP server/address pool to create IPs for VMs automatically, but the VMs will be on a subnet that cannot be accessed by other devices or even other services on unRAID. This type of bridge is ideal if you want your VM to be completely isolated from all other network services accept internet access and the host's network file sharing protocols. VM management can be performed through a VNC session provided by the browser. The public bridge provides VMs with an IP address from your router, but internally bridges communications between VMs and each other, as well the host. This type of bridge is ideal if you want your VMs to act just like another device on your network, where you manage it's network access at the LAN-router instead of inside the VM. We persist MAC address settings for the virtual interfaces you create, ensuring the VMs should get the same IP address each time they connect, as long as your router-managed DHCP pool doesn't run out of addresses. So if you want to connect to your VM from another PC, laptop, tablet, or other type of device, you should use the public bridge. Whichever bridge you prefer can be defined as the Default Network Bridge on the VM Settings page. Does anyone here see any major downfalls to going with the public bridge so I can gain access to a printer through the VM? I couldn't find a way to achieve this through the private bridge that is managed through libvirt.

I've got windows 10 almost 100% installed. No hiccups yet. It is downloading its mandatory updates. Not sure that I like that. It is using QEMU for display control. Kind of cool, I've never used it before. I've got a bit to learn, I think. I've found a way to disable updates, however it will stop ALL updates. Since I won't have anything too important on the VM, this isn't a big deal for me right now. http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-windows-update-in-windows-10 Everything seems to be working. I used private bridge. I'm not sure if I will be able to connect to printers or not, but if I can access a printer, internet (I can) and the unraid array for whatever I may need it for then I'll be completely happy with the private bridge setup. If not, then I'll need to go back and try the public bridge.

Thanks for bearing with me through my simple questions. I've run in to a couple more. I've got the 2.5" drive installed now and need to format it. I have no idea what is on it. I believe an OLD OSX install, but regardless I don't really care. Since it has some sort of format, unraid isn't allowing me to format through the webgui. I'd assume I need to do this through command line on the server? I haven't found any formatting buttons in the webui yet. I'd imagine I should format it with btrfs? Should I create just one partition? I think I'll have a few VMs and ISO images on it. I should be able to put those on different shares within the single cache drive, correct? Edit, I figured it out. Had to take the array offline, select filesystem for cache disk once I assigned it (chose btrfs, let me know if I should change) then I went ahead and started array and it then allowed me to format that drive.

I see... So you have a VM share on the cache disk and you contain all your VMs and ISOs there? I don't currently have a cache drive and don't really need one other than to put the VM installs on so they have quicker/read write. This is what I was thinking about using the 2.5" laptop drive for. Installing the drive and using it exclusively as a cache drive for the VMs, but not for any media transfer. I'm quite content with the setup I have for media transfer.

I've got a couple questions as I go through the VM endeavor through unraid management. I have a found 2.5" laptop drive that I can install in the unraid system for the VMs. I'm going through Lime-Tech's guide for setting up a VM line for line. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Installing_a_Windows_VM I'm going to start with windows 10 because I can directly download the iso for it to be sure this is something I want to do before buying any other versions or OSs. I have my typical unraid share where I have all my media. It is currently the only share I have. Should I create a separate one for the install ISOs? Separate one for actual VM installs (each vm get its own share or one for each VM?) Separate one for VM backup