MacOS, APFS, Multi-OS Multipurpose Smart Setup March 2021 - How do you do yours?

[Eksster]

2 rigs mostly the same:

AMD Ryzen 3900x processor,

Gigabyte Motherboard X570 Aorus Ultra and Elite wifi,

Various graphics cards. Vega frontier liquid is my best.

Various drives, NVME, SSD 3.5 spinners.

 

Currently 1 is my Unraid server (4 years running),

1 is my main hackintosh dedicated machine running solely on a 2TB 970 NVME.

 

Goal:

1. Spread hardware utilization across both machines.

2. Allow simultaneous VM's on my main hackintosh without compromising core Hackintosh functionality.

 

Story:

I've always been a laptop vs. desktop questioner. I've landed more to desktop power user experience. 

This debate has grown and morphed more to a main dedicated rig vs. adding complication for it's benefits with Unraid allowing multiple VM's simultaneously. 

I used to run multiple VMs with Unraid including my main MacOS. I eventually switched this to 2 rigs: Unraid and my main dedicated Hackintosh. X570 isn't big on IO.. I expanded my slots and busses to the max and it wasn't enough. 

I used to run a small boot ssd and have a larger NVME data drive I would symlink to until I was able to get a 2TB NVME and just rock it.

When you symlink in macOS things are different. It's hard to keep track of applications. Some can be on the symlinked drive but most cannot. There are other downsides. 

 

Questions:

1. How can I get my APFS bootable OC hackintosh drives to boot as a VM? I've tried passing the unassigned top level disk ID through a linux template as Sata just to find my Bootloader have no disks available. When I pass a drive through to an existing MacOS VM, it's not visible in space invaders OC boot loader, but when I have the os running I can see and use the disk. So I'm getting blocked somehow for booting from one of these drives. This is my biggest question. 

2. What is your opinion about running a macOS VM on Unraid as your main computer? Reliable, stable? Compromises? Improvements?

3. Suggestions for me if my goal is to keep my existing hackintosh's current abilities but free up much of the hardwares unused resources by rebuilding it on top of Unraid?

 

I'd like to buy another Unraid License, run one of my 2 liquid Vega frontiers on my hackintosh in a windows vm rather than moving it over to my existing Unraid rig. I question things since I haven't been able to successfully pass through and boot off an unassigned physical MacOS disk yet. 

My alternative is to move a Vega FE over to my existing Unraid rig and easily run it on a windows vm there, then just not change my main Mac.