Virtualizing with Unraid and storage speed

[titust1]

Hi, I'm more interested in the virtualization than the storage aspect of Unraid. I am in the trial period and I'm trying to evaluate /  understand how Unraid works in regards to virtualization. From what I understand Unraid allows you to have only one array that can have multiple folders/shares in it, BUT this array can contain only spinning disks (HDDs). Obviously an array of spinning disks, (no matter the speed and the number of cache drives associated to it) will be always be slower than a single nvme / SSD or and than an array of nvme drives.

If you want to have the fastest VM possible, you don't only need a performant CPU, but also the fastest storage where the VM is being stored.

YES Unraid is very good for providing a bullet proof storage layer for your storage needs, and will conveniently protect your data.

YES Unraid has a very nice virtualization interface and features, BUT for me the way this has been implemented, and therefore the speed of the storage is a limiting factor for virtualization performance.

Maybe I don't understand enough all the aspects of Unraid functionality, so that's why I am asking this forum, is there another way of doing this? Maybe create a second nvme or SSD array to keep the VMs? or dedicate a single nvme (without protection) for storing only VMs?

Edited April 9, 2022 by titust1

[itimpi]

As well as the main array you can have btrfs pools (up to 30) that can utilise btrfs raid.  These are what most Unraid users would use to host VMs.

[titust1]

So butterfs pools. I got it. But can I use nvme drives in these pools?

[itimpi]

2 minutes ago, titust1 said:

But can I use nvme drives in these pools?

Yes