UnRAID v6 - optimising cache configuration for multiple VMs. Advice please.

[bdbd]

Hi! I've embarked on a major upgrade of my UnRAID machine and am looking to optimise and reuse various SSDs.

My goal is:
- array (all in hand)
- Windows VM (ditto)

- OS X VM combined with a RAID 0 scratch drive

- various dockers (all in hand)

 

I have a 1TB NVMe SSD that is currently set up as a single cache drive and is currently utilised for the Windows VM and a couple of dockers.

 

I would like to dedicate this SSD to the Windows VM. Not clear if cache or passthrough is the best approach.

 

I plan to repurpose:

- another 1TB NVMe SSD. I would like to dedicate this to the OS X VM.

- a pair of 250GB NVMe SSDs. I would like to set these as a dedicated RAID0 array for use as a scratch drive for the OS X VM. Seems sensible to use this RAID0 array as the cache too although if this pair need to be dedicated/passed through(?) to the OS X VM, I could use the docker's SSD for cache.

- a 512GB NVMe SSD. I would like to dedicate this to various dockers.

 

I have a Threadripper supporting PCI 4. The Windows VM's SSD is PCI 4. The remaining SSDs are PCI3 which I plan to use in an Asus Hyper M.2 X16 to make use of the available PCI lanes on the processor.

 

I'm not 100% clear on cache pool configuration or passing through/dedicating NVMe drives to VMs so would appreciate some pointers. Thanks! BD.