License requirement question.

[Bizquick]

This might sound like I'm trying to cheat the license system. But Question is if I only want to set up 1 drive and a cache drive for apps.
but pass thru all my other drives to a VM for a ZFS Storage and I might have 7 drives going to that. can I just get the Low 6 drive license because I'm going to pass all the other drives to a VM? I just had a really intresting experince today with ZFS and transfer rates and they ran like 50 % better than my current unraid setup. But I like unraid for the app support and stuff but thinking for shares and array to use truenas core.

[Bizquick]

Well I think after reading a little bit I answered my own question.

I need the higher license because I cant start VMs with out starting the array and what is says it would be all drives connected when I start the array.
so even if I pass them thru the drives are connected. And I would have to start the array for the VM manager service. and the pass thru would happen after the VM manager service. so yeah I would need at least plus or better.

[tjb_altf4]

If you have those drives (and only those drives) for the VM on a HBA which you then bind to vfio-driver, what you want to do would work.

However, the next release of Unraid is under development and ZFS has been mentioned to be officially supported for this release, and already is unofficially supported via community plugin... so I would consider springing for the Pro licence and running ZFS on Unraid itself.

Edited December 25, 2022 by tjb_altf4

[Bizquick]

Yeah but its not just unraid.
what I noticed is ZFS in BSD is actually alot faster than ZFS on linux.
how I did my comparison is a little off. But I used the same hardware and same files I backup.
I run my backup to a Truenas Core build and my speed was 30% faster.
than running the backup on TrueNAS Scale . (truenas scale is ixsystems linux build of TrueNAS.) Anyway I was thinking I could some what make simular preformance if I ran my ZFS array inside a TrueNAS core VM with passthur. But I still would need to pass alot of resources to make it almost equal to my test because I was testing a running system and off resources running on backup hardware. which is almost as equal and my primary only like 16gigs less ram. I kind of want to build a new backup box but I cant decide on motherboard /ram for the amount I want to pay. Well this is getting off my topic now. It sounds like I do have an option. And I already have the pro license on my main. this was going to be for my backup box.