The Great Consolidation - Gaming PC & Blue Iris under Unraids Roof

[danimal86]

Right now i' have 3 computers: Unraid Server (24/7) Blue Iris Server (24/7) Gaming Computer (10hrs/daily), thinking about consolidating everything to unraid

 

Here's the hardware Cliffnotes:
Unraid: i7-7700k (4c8t), 16gb ram, Asus Z270-A Prime Mobo, LSI 9211-8i HBA, Quadro P200 in a Fractal Define 7, 650w psu, 9 sata drives and 1 128gb m.2 (plex appdata), mostly plex and arr's dockers. 2 16tb WD Gold, 4 14tb WD White's, 2 1tb Mx500 Cache ssd, 128gb m.2 for plex appdata
Blue Iris: Refurb HP Elite Desk G1 SFF, i7-4790 (4c/8t), 16gb Ram, 3tb storage drive
Gaming: Ryzen 9 3900x (12c/24t), Coolermaster 240 AIO, 16gb ram, Asus ROG Strix x570_E Mobo, Evga 3060ti, 512gb 970pro, NZXT H510i (hate the case, no airflow), 500w psu

 

I'm thinking about consolidating everything into unraid. Am i crazy?
I'm fairly energy usage conscious, so i really like how my unraid server just sips about 60w when nothing crazy is going on, i believe full tilit is about 120w. My Gaming computer runs anywhere around 100-200w depending on gaming/idle mining. The blue iris server i dont think takes much power, its more of the poe cameras. I dont really do a ton of gaming, but i do have a HTC Vive (w/ wireless adapter thats cpu hungry, thats why i went overkill with the 3900x) that doesn't get much use now that i have a Oculus Quest 2 (i use airlink a decent amount, not sure how much cpu it uses)

 

It would be quite the hardware shuffle, but here's what it would look like:
Define 7 Case, 3900x, Might use the AIO but probably switch to a Noctua NH-D15
Upgrade Ram to 32gb or 64gb (chrome tabs lol)
3060ti (gaming), P2000 (Plex), HBA Card
Upgrade to a 800w+ PSU
Storage: 2 16tb WD Gold (Unraid parity), 4 14tb WD Whites (Unraid Storage), 2 1tb sata Mx500 ssd's (unraid cache), 128gb m.2 (plex appdata) , 512gb 970pro m.2 (gaming pc), 128gb sata ssd (blue iris), 3tb sata Hard Drive (dedicated Blue Iris storage)

 

My concerns:
Blue Iris really likes intel quicksync, i would be loosing out on that. I could add a small card like a 1050 but at that point all my pcie x16 slots would be full, Currently i'm at 10 sata ports and the ROG mobo has 8 sata ports, so i would need the HBA Card. I could start utilizing a pcie x1 slot and get a x1 hba card and put some/all the 14tb sata drives on it. I have a feeling that the 3900x shouldn't have a problem with data handling.
This is getting to be a lot of PCIE lanes being used, the 3900x has 24 gen4 lanes not sure how everything would be divided up.
I've never really ran vm's (i have one windows vm installed on unraid right now, but haven't used it). Is there any downside to running a windows vm daily?  I'm thinking each of the 3 would be getting 4c/8t.

 

Other Options and Costs:
Above Plan: $150/$300 in ram (32gb/64gb), $100 Cooler, $200 PSU ~$500 upgrade cost and everything in one machine (could keep the AIO and just do 32gb ram for around $300) Sell the 7700k and 4790 machine to recoup.
Keep gaming pc separate and put blue iris on the unraid server - 0$ cost and not really much gained
Do Nothing: $0
Sell all cpu/mobo's and buy a new Intel Processor and mobo ~ $1K+ not sure how much i can sell all the systems for.

[antpv]

Since your post was made in February, and it is now October, just curious, what did you decide, which route software/hardware you went with?

 

For BlueIris, I'm running PowerEdge r720 with Nvidia 1070ti (various vm's), I've installed 10GB NIC and HBA for Proxmox.

Windows VM for BlueIris. I know this particular setup doesn't do h265, however, it has been stable for recording h264 (continuous 24/7) and smooth/decent on playback over RDP and via mobile connection. I've tried Nvidia K2000 and it was cheap and also good with BlueIris. Reason for 1070ti to split GPU to multiple VM's. Currently have both video cards in Poweredge r720.

 

Ryzen 1700x computer with 64GB ram, RX580:

Just got 64GB ram RMA returned from G.Skill, new set of DDR3. This was a major draw for me recently. This is the computer I used with Windows where BlueIris was running on and cloud backup to backbalze. Worked excellent until memory crapped out. I will try Unraid on this computer now with BlueIris in VM. No worries for the lost data as everything in backblaze and now had been restored.

 

Unraid:

The computer I had Unraid running on, was AMD 8350 Vishera cpu, 32GB ram, RX480, unit went dead, after troubleshooting with 2 burned motherboards came to conclude that PSU Corsair CX750M went bad. It burned 2 of the AM3+ boards. I've tried BlueIris in VM on this setup, and was not as successful perhaps to a learning curve I'm going through with Unraid as I'm relatively new to it.

 

Your hardware definitely supersedes mine, curious what have you done, based on your original post. 

 

Thank you.

[danimal86]

9 hours ago, antpv said:

Since your post was made in February, and it is now October, just curious, what did you decide, which route software/hardware you went with?

 

For BlueIris, I'm running PowerEdge r720 with Nvidia 1070ti (various vm's), I've installed 10GB NIC and HBA for Proxmox.

Windows VM for BlueIris. I know this particular setup doesn't do h265, however, it has been stable for recording h264 (continuous 24/7) and smooth/decent on playback over RDP and via mobile connection. I've tried Nvidia K2000 and it was cheap and also good with BlueIris. Reason for 1070ti to split GPU to multiple VM's. Currently have both video cards in Poweredge r720.

 

Ryzen 1700x computer with 64GB ram, RX580:

Just got 64GB ram RMA returned from G.Skill, new set of DDR3. This was a major draw for me recently. This is the computer I used with Windows where BlueIris was running on and cloud backup to backbalze. Worked excellent until memory crapped out. I will try Unraid on this computer now with BlueIris in VM. No worries for the lost data as everything in backblaze and now had been restored.

 

Unraid:

The computer I had Unraid running on, was AMD 8350 Vishera cpu, 32GB ram, RX480, unit went dead, after troubleshooting with 2 burned motherboards came to conclude that PSU Corsair CX750M went bad. It burned 2 of the AM3+ boards. I've tried BlueIris in VM on this setup, and was not as successful perhaps to a learning curve I'm going through with Unraid as I'm relatively new to it.

 

Your hardware definitely supersedes mine, curious what have you done, based on your original post. 

 

Thank you.

I've done exactly nothing.  lol

I still have my main server on the i7 7700k with p2000, desktop/gaming on the 3900x with a 3060ti and the blue iris server on 4790 machine.  

 

I've kindof back burnere'd my consolidations because stability is a big thing for me, and it just seems like its a fun project, but ultimate a giant headache to get things working properly.  

I am starting to look into building an offsite backup with the possibility of a plex failover incase my main server goes down or need maintenance.  Used hardware would be perfect for this but people want way too much.  For now i'll keep my eyes out for a deal on maybe an 11th gen cpu/mobo combo and move my main server to that and take the old hardware and turn it into an offsite backup.