Right now I have my unraid server on z97 4770k mobo and CPU. It's primarily a media server and works fine with a 1050 gfx card doing transcodes.

 

Thing is, this hardware can't do media server stuff as well as it does AND also run VM's - one or the other, not both - I've even thought about trying to drop a Xeon or i7 with hyperthreading in to upgrade it but they're silly prices. Don't get me wrong - it can do it, but with only four cores to play with, DDR3 RAM and all of it over seven years old, it's asking a lot for it to do more than media server duties. 

 

However I also have a x570 + Ryzen 3600 + RX580 PC which I multiboot MacOS, Windows 10 (for occasional gaming) and various Linux distros on. I use a 5.25" optical drive bay to hold 4 x 2.5" SSDs as the various OS boot volumes and just eject whatever OS's aren't currently being used. 90% of the time I use it as a hackintosh for music production and general desktop stuff.

 

So my question is: Can I take the existing MacOS and Windows 10 installs and "make" them into VM's I access by making this Ryzen PC into a second unRAID server specifically for VM's?

 

I've seen a lot of great video tutorial content about fresh installing MacOS and Windows 10 as VM's from Ed, but what about existing installs - along with all their apps, documents etc? Is this doable? Is it worth doing? I'm kinda intrigued by the challenge of it and it seems kinda neat - but I also appreciate how solid, fast and reliable just multi-booting on bare metal is as well.

Total noob at exploring VM's - I have installed them on my unraid server but can't play with them too much without the missus wondering why her Plex client has gone AWOL

7 hours ago, awediohead said:

Can I take the existing MacOS and Windows 10 installs and "make" them into VM's I access by making this Ryzen PC into a second unRAID server specifically for VM's?

Yes, look at here:

 

Basically you need to passthrough the whole disk in the xml (+ virtual controller), or better would be passthrough the real sata controller(s) or nvme controller(s) so to have near native performances (without passing through the disks, because all that is attached to the controller(s) is passed through).

Check your bare installation types, if there are uefi or legacy bios: use ovmf in the vm for uefi installations, seabios for legacy ones.

Thanks ghost82 for the link to that video - I somehow missed it. Thought I'd watched all of Ed's videos but clearly not!

 

As the R5 3600 doesn't have an iGPU is there anything I need to consider about passing through the RX580? I think it would only be an issue if I was trying to run two VM's at the same time as they can't share a GPU simultaneously?

 

Am I right in thinking that if I associate (pass through) particular SATA controllers no's with a specific VM I can leave those drives formatted as each OS expects?

 

For e.g. If on SATA 01 I have my Mac boot SSD (APFS) and on SATA 02 I have a 4TB HD (HFS+), so SATA 1 and 2 are my "MacOS VM" drives . . . 

 

Likewise, SATA 03 Windows 10 boot SSD (NTFS) and SATA 04 Windows Steam Library SSD (NTFS), for Win10 VM . . .

 

If that works I can be more experimental as I can always revert to bare metal multi-boot if I make a mess of passing through the sata controllers.

 

27 minutes ago, awediohead said:

I think it would only be an issue if I was trying to run two VM's at the same time as they can't share a GPU simultaneously?

Gpu can be used by one vm at a time.

Please consider also the so called "amd reset bug": search for it, unraid has patches for it.

 

27 minutes ago, awediohead said:

Am I right in thinking that if I associate (pass through) particular SATA controllers no's with a specific VM I can leave those drives formatted as each OS expects?

Yes, but the same applies if you passthrough the disk and you attach it to a virtual (sata) controller.

 

27 minutes ago, awediohead said:

For e.g. If on SATA 01 I have my Mac boot SSD (APFS) and on SATA 02 I have a 4TB HD (HFS+), so SATA 1 and 2 are my "MacOS VM" drives . . . 

I don't know what you mean by 01/02 etc.

You can passthrough the whole controller: one controller is made of several sata ports and when you passthrough a controller you passhrough all the devices attached to that ports.

Note that you don't want to pass the sata controller to which you have attached the array drive, cache, parity, etc.

In my setup I have 3 disks and a blueray drive attached to an isolated sata controller with mac os, windows and linux and each vm sees all the devices attached to that sata controller.

Again, only one vm at a time is allowed to run.

27 minutes ago, awediohead said:

If that works I can be more experimental as I can always revert to bare metal multi-boot if I make a mess of passing through the sata controllers.

Yes, correct.

But since you are experimenting first backup at least important data.

Edited November 2, 20214 yr by ghost82

Quote

In my setup I have 3 disks and a blueray drive attached to an isolated sata controller with mac os, windows and linux and each vm sees all the devices attached to that sata controller.

 

Ok thanks for the clarification - I mistakenly thought I could pass through on a per port basis, hence the numbering. Thanks for the other info and explanations - much appreciated!

If you don't have the possibility, or you don't want to passthrough the real controller just passthrough the disk(s), the video should cover it.