Virtualization Host capabilities

[titust1]

Hi, I intend to give unraid a try mostly for the virtualization feature, the NAS being a bonus.
But before doing this, I want to ask the community whether I can achieve the following:

- I have a new z690 MSI mtb + Intel core i7 12700K to be used by the host + a Radeon RX580 GPU

- I plan to run the unraid host server headless and to create 2 VMs:

      1. A VM (for Linux or iOS Monterey) with the Radeon GPU passthrough

      2. A VM for Windows 11 with the iGPU passthrough

How difficult it is to do this (if possible at all)?

Has this been done before?

Thanks lot to all the experts who know what I’m talking about

[CobraPL]

I see no-one answers you.
I can't say for sure (I am beginner too), but you may not be able to pass-through Radeon cards. Anyway, every report I saw here was about failure to successfully pass-through Radeon integrated to Windows and install drivers. Not sure for Linux or Mac.
I have 4650G and I failed too.

[titust1]

Yeah, there is no much activity on this forum. I’ve read good things about unraid, but despite that, I think the majority of specialists are storage gurus, not virtualization specialists, and without a little bit of support or ideas about passthrough what I want is going to be difficult to achieve.

 If not possible I will try Proxmox. With Proxmox won’t be easier, but there seems to more info on the web

[Felixen]

You can always try it out before you decide if you have the hardware available. I spent a week trying out everything i wanted to be able to do with a trial-license before I made my decision. 

 

With the Alder-Lake cpu there is some success using the igpu for transcoding but I haven't researched igpu passthrough. As I understand the kernel needs to get to 5.15 or above to fully support 12th gen intel. The successful tests were made with 6.10-rc2.

 

I went with an 11th gen and in my case everything works fine.

 

Just my 5 cents

 

[jonp]

On 2/20/2022 at 12:07 PM, titust1 said:

Yeah, there is no much activity on this forum. I’ve read good things about unraid, but despite that, I think the majority of specialists are storage gurus, not virtualization specialists, and without a little bit of support or ideas about passthrough what I want is going to be difficult to achieve.

 If not possible I will try Proxmox. With Proxmox won’t be easier, but there seems to more info on the web

 

We need to be paying more attention to this specific pre-sales board.  The forums in general are VERY active and offer far better support for consumer/prosumer use-cases than any other platform available.  The big thing with Unraid is that we're DESIGNED for consumers whereas most of our competition is designing their products for the enterprise/business use-cases and simply offer a free option so that IT professionals download it, learn it from home, and then hopefully sell their bosses on bringing it into the office in a paid-support setting.

 

When it comes to virtualization support, Unraid utilizes KVM, which is, just like the OS, Linux-based.  Proxmox is another great example of a very powerful solution for businesses, but oftentimes is overkill for consumers and they certainly don't specialize in optimization for VFIO (GPU pass through).  That is where Unraid offers some clear advantages because the OS is tuned for that use-case.

 

People run into problems with GPU pass through for a variety of reasons, but it is never because of Unraid OS itself.  VFIO relies on hardware working a "certain way" and some manufacturers don't adhere to that standardized method.  When they don't, problems can ensue and there are limits to what we or even the Linux open source community can do  about it.  Sometimes you'll see quirks get made to address one-off hardware problems, but other times we need the manufacturer themselves to step in, and quite frankly, that can be a tall order.

 

And as @Felixen says, it is far easier to just try it and see if it works than to ask here, because it all comes down to your specific setup.

 

Last comments I'll make regarding hardware:

 

1)  Processor / mobo seem fine.  Intel is always preferred as we generally see people having less problems with virtualization and networking.

2)  AMD-based GPUs can be more problematic with VFIO/GPU pass through.  It has gotten a lot better over the years, but know that this again isn't something that will change by switching to Proxmox or any other solution.

3)  iGPU pass through is also challenging.  It "should work" but since it's not common enough of a use-case, there isn't a lot of support in the community for it.

[SimonF]

On 2/20/2022 at 6:07 PM, titust1 said:

Yeah, there is no much activity on this forum. I’ve read good things about unraid, but despite that, I think the majority of specialists are storage gurus, not virtualization specialists, and without a little bit of support or ideas about passthrough what I want is going to be difficult to achieve.

 If not possible I will try Proxmox. With Proxmox won’t be easier, but there seems to more info on the web

Hi I did reply to your other post in vm engine.

[SimonF]

I have posted CPU clock speeds on this post.

 

[danioj]

On 2/20/2022 at 2:01 AM, titust1 said:

Hi, I intend to give unraid a try mostly for the virtualization feature, the NAS being a bonus.
But before doing this, I want to ask the community whether I can achieve the following:

- I have a new z690 MSI mtb + Intel core i7 12700K to be used by the host + a Radeon RX580 GPU

- I plan to run the unraid host server headless and to create 2 VMs:

      1. A VM (for Linux or iOS Monterey) with the Radeon GPU passthrough

      2. A VM for Windows 11 with the iGPU passthrough

How difficult it is to do this (if possible at all)?

Has this been done before?

Thanks lot to all the experts who know what I’m talking about

 

My2c.

 

You should be able to do everything that you seek to do - yes those things has been done before. You can get a trial license and give it a go to see if it meets your needs. Generally speaking, unRAID is an excellent product supported by a great and active community.

 

The only word of caution I would give you is, if you're primary interest is virtualization, then there might be better solutions out there for you (e.g. Proxmox).

 

The primary reason for my note of caution is that unRAID requires that the storage array is "started" for other services (KVM, Docker etc) to start.

 

In my experience, if there is a problem with an array disk then this often destabilizes the whole system until the disk problem is fixed.  To put that into lay terms - your VM's and Docker Containers aren't going to start unless the array is started and will remain stable and operational as long as your array is in good health.