Can I use UnRaid to run a high performance macOS-VM System?

[MICH3SESSION]

Hello,

I want to have
Windows 10 für playing games
&
macOS für music production
at one Computer

I got a high performance PC hardware, but i don't want a Hackintosh solution.

So I got the following question that I don't find an answer for:

 

1. Do I need a separate PC/Server to run UnRaid, or can I run UnRaid also with the same hardware that I use to work (the PC)?
2. If I run the macOS VM (Virtual Machine) at the server, does UnRaid use only the performance from the server, or also from my high performance PC (do I need a high performance server?)

Thank you all, I hope you can help me.
 

[davide445]

A newcomer as you, will try to give some ideas waiting some more expert answer, due the fact I just tried to virtualize my wife Mac.

 

As far as I know there is no way to officially wirtualize MacOS. The only supported option from Apple is to purchase proper Apple hardware.

 

I tried to run an unofficial MacOS image with patches on a VM manager such as VirtualBox (I suppose Unraid can do the same), and was up and running but with absymyal graphics performances due no possibility to passtrough GPU hw to the VM, even trying to use the recommended steps in doing so. Maybe with some more hacking will be possible but I doubt will be a stable solution.

 

The other option will be to create an hackintosh, installing the OS directly on the hw. Understood its not what you want, and I haven't tried this path.

 

In the end I dropped trying and purchased a proper MBP for my wife.

 

In my opinion for your need you can just purchase a Mac hardware and run a Windows VM inside, seems Parallels has good performances in doing so.

[ChatNoir]

Not into VM myself but I am pretty sure that many users on the forums have MacOS VMs they use daily.

[davide445]

Maybe I have given up to soon 😄

Possibly in my case the setup didn't helped: was trying to get a VM into a Windows laptop with Ryzen CPU and integrated GPU, not the best combination

Maybe using a discrete GPU will make all more manageable

[ghost82]

On 3/22/2022 at 2:25 AM, MICH3SESSION said:

Do I need a separate PC/Server to run UnRaid, or can I run UnRaid also with the same hardware that I use to work (the PC)?

You can use same hardware.

Unraid needs at least 1 disk in its array, so if you want to boot separately your work hd and unraid with its array I would suggest 2 disks, one for the array, one with your os you use to work.

If you want to boot unraid, just plug in the usb key and from the bios boot from usb.

The disk with your work os can be an unassigned device in unraid and moreover you can create a vm in unraid and passthrough that disk to run your os work inside a vm in unraid.

 

On 3/22/2022 at 2:25 AM, MICH3SESSION said:

If I run the macOS VM (Virtual Machine) at the server, does UnRaid use only the performance from the server, or also from my high performance PC (do I need a high performance server?

This is not clear...server hardware is the lower level, on that hardware it runs unraid (the os), inside unraid qemu and libvirt run your virtual machine. With vt-d enabled you can passthrough to the vm hardware to have near native performance.

For mac os the important thing is to passthrough a gpu otherwise without video acceleration the os will be crap.

 

20 hours ago, davide445 said:

As far as I know there is no way to officially wirtualize MacOS. The only supported option from Apple is to purchase proper Apple hardware.

This is true, you should have apple hardware to virtualize apple software.

Some interpret the policy as you can run a virtualized mac os 'somewhere' if you have another mac, in real I think that you can virtualize it only on apple hardware, so yes, I think I'm breaking the policy, even if I own a macbook pro.

However Apple seems to not care about it, I also helped in fixing some bugs with apple support and I had no problems in telling them that I was running their os on a vm on non apple hardware.

But yes, take into account that everyone doing this is most probably breaking the official policy.

 

20 hours ago, davide445 said:

I tried to run an unofficial MacOS image with patches on a VM manager such as VirtualBox

As far as I know qemu is the most or one of the most advanced software to run virtual machines, a lot lot better than virtual box, parallels, fusion, etc.

I was using vmware in the past and migrated all to qemu vms: mac os vm for everyday use, windows 11 for work on 3d cad and cfd and gaming (with a racing simulator attached), kali for programming. Each vm has the same gpu passed through, usb controllers, audio and other peripherals, like in bare metal; I can only see slight performance degradation only if I push my cpus to 100%, in cfd calculations for example.

However having 3 machines in one is a lot better all in all.

 

20 hours ago, davide445 said:

In my opinion for your need you can just purchase a Mac hardware and run a Windows VM inside, seems Parallels has good performances in doing so

I was running this setup in 2008

Advanced virtual machines is the way to go nowadays.

 

20 hours ago, davide445 said:

The other option will be to create an hackintosh, installing the OS directly on the hw

I can say that qemu vms with passthroughs are equivalent to bare metal hackintoshes, with the advantage of less headache of compatibility.

 

5 hours ago, davide445 said:

was trying to get a VM into a Windows laptop with Ryzen CPU and integrated GPU, not the best combination

Agree, laptops in general, unless they are workstation laptops, could be quite limited, but this depends from case to case.

--

I'm still running all of this on a 2012 workstation hardware (apart the gpu), 2x xeon e5-2687w (v0), 64 Gb ram, 6900 xt gpu on a asus z9pe-d8 ws mb: not recent but still fast and powerful!

Moreover, qemu advanced vms allowed me to install the latest version of mac os monterey 12.3 on my old hardware without any compatibility issue and install the latest version of windows 11 with emulated tpm, even if I don't have a real tpm in my motherboard.

 

Worth spending some time to study how all of this work!

Edited March 29, 2022 by ghost82

[Hexenhammer]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:34 PM, ghost82 said:

The disk with your work os can be an unassigned device in unraid and moreover you can create a vm in unraid and passthrough that disk to run your os work inside a vm in unraid.

 

Hi, is there any guides on how to do that? I have NVMe with my windows 11 that when i need to use i unplug unraid usb and dual boot [its a backup PC so not happens very often]

But if i can VM it and run it on unRAID that will be much easier and ill have a second PC running