Hello,
I just wanted to provide some feedback on my recent experience with unRAID 6.1 and converting this machine into a dedicated unRAID box.
Background:
I have been following unRAID since the 4.x versions but never made the move to embrace it. Once 6.1 was out and I saw what Dockers were capable of I had to make the move. I really like the ability to keep data/dockers on same physical hardware so an additional trip across network is not needed. The well rounded feature set of unRAID makes a Synology NAS look like a toy. Before this build I was running the Win10 tech preview on it and decided I did not want to run an OS where I have to constantly monitor the WinUpdates for the snoopy ones to block.
Before
Like most people who make the move I had an existing solution in place and that was a Drobo b1200i iSCSI 12 drive device. This has worked fine for a year or so and I eventually got tired of hearing the fans in this thing run while I am trying to work all day in the next room. This also uses 200+ watts just sitting there. (the drive spin-up time seems much longer than unRAID so I never used that feature to avoid the lag. The enclosure got damaged in shipping when I bought it and had to make wedges so the drives would stay seated properly. The thing is turned off now and never been happier with it
After
System Specs:
Motherboard: Asus X99 Deluxe
CPU: Intel i7 5690X
PSU: Rosewill Quark 1200W
GPU: (2) Asus GTX970 Turbo
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4 2666Mhz 32GB
Cooling: NZXT Kraken X61 Water cooling
Case: NZXT Phantom 530 White Full Tower
Drives:
(1) 16GB Verbatim Store N Go flash drive
(1) Intel 750 Series 2.5" 400GB Pcie NVM express drive (currently has Win10 installed, does not show up as a device at all but I see it listed during boot) Not sure what I need to do, maybe format elsewhere to remove win boot mgr.
(2) Seagate 4TB (1 parity, 1 array)
(2) WD 4TB Blacks (array)
(2) Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD (cache pool)
My Docker Experience
Prior to this build I have never used a Docker before and was really surprised of the doors that can open. I have not had any trouble with the process and the Community Applications section is fantastic.
The one thing I wish Dockers had more of is some way to see status in the GUI of resource consumption. I have looked around at other docker solutions and very impressed with Rancher and the interface there. I wish unRAID had a similar GUI for Dockers. I see there are Rancher dockers available in docker hub, I wonder if that could work with the unRAID dockers for management. http://rancher.com/rancher/
Favorite tip: With heavy use of Docker and a KVM stored on 120GB it seems that space goes fast. I had originally set the docker image to use 10GB and ran out of space. Someone on forums suggested a trick to expand it easily with GUI only and it worked perfect. I turned docker off, kept image name the same, put in new size of 60GB and like magic I had more space without moving the existing Dockers around. Thanks!
KVM Feedback
I was previously running VMware with a VMDK I wanted to convert. Like most people it seems VirtIO drivers always cause some headache. Forum posts here were enough to get me going. I installed VirtIO drivers in my VMware VM, uninstalled VMware tools, and did the emu-img convert to .qcow2 format of a Win2008 Server R2 VM and it worked perfectly in KVM.
I assigned one of the GTX970 GPU's to the VM and it worked like magic, GPU passthrough worked, drivers working in the server OS, I did not have to modify any config files to do this. The only thing I did not see how to do is assign both of my GPU's to Windows. Do you know what happens when you forget to click the box for USB keyboard to be passed to the VM and you click Ctl-Alt-Delete when looking at login screen onscreen? unRAID comes down instead with an ungraceful shutdown. I suppose nothing can be done to detect that key sequence and prompt for Y or N to shutdown.
The one feature that I am missing that I really need is snapshots, it sounds like that is possible through command line though right?
Has anyone been able to run virt-manager on a separate machine and get it working with snapshots? Thanks in advance
I have been telling all of my friends/family who are looking for a NAS to go this direction.