Recommendations for a newbie?

[moisemust]

Hi.
I used to work in IT as a Windows technician. I've been using macOS and Windows on and off on my personal machines since college, which I left 13 years ago. I'm also a light Linux user, but I still consider myself a newbie as I'm only used to Ubuntu, and every time I tried using something more complex like Debian I was mostly lost.
I currently own a desktop with a triple boot between macOS, Windows 11 and Ubuntu. I realize I'm not using its hardware to its full potential (it has an i7 8700k, 32 GB of DDR4 RAM).
I rarely use Ubuntu and most of what I do with it could be done in Windows' subsystem for Linux. macOS is the os I use most but I just purchased a second hand M1 MacBook air, since macOS on Intel Macs (and so on hackintoshes) days are numbered. I also own a synology NAS which is backed up on an old PC (using a raid 5 array of 3 4 TB drives) I was gifted at the end of an internship, running openmediavault.

I would like to make the switch to unraid and merge my hackintosh desktop with the old PC backing up my Synology NAS. I would either use my hackintosh hardware, or a new desktop (I already have most parts) with an i5 8500, running Windows 11 in a VM, along with managing backups from my Synology NAS. I would love to also run macOS in another VM, but my macOS drive contents are a copy of my MacBook's SSD. Let's just say it would be a plus (I already found a tutorial just in case). I also have a spare working 4 TB hard drive and a 6 TB one, but it's showing SMART warnings. The only thing I'm not sure I understand is how do you manage the OSes on unraid? Should I have a drive for each OS or can I use a single hard drive for all of them since I think they would be images so just files.

Also is my i7 overkill? Or can I use an i5 8500 instead? I would prefer the new PC route, so I can keep the hackintosh in my room and put my unraid rig in my office room. I'm just not 100% sure the i5 would be powerful enough.

 

What do you guys think?

[TimTheSettler]

On 3/7/2023 at 7:33 AM, moisemust said:

I'm just not 100% sure the i5 would be powerful enough.

 

I have less powerful machines that are running unRAID (as you can see in my signature below).  Lots of people do.  The trick is what you plan to do with the unRAID system.  That might overtax it down the road.  But not to fret.  What I did was I repurposed an old computer I had lying around and put unRAID on it.  I used it for a week or so but found it to be underpowered so I upgraded the motherboard, CPU, and RAM.  The nice thing about unRAID is that the OS sits on the USB stick and you can basically plug it in wherever you want or replace all the hardware.

 

On 3/7/2023 at 7:33 AM, moisemust said:

running Windows 11 in a VM ... I would love to also run macOS in another VM

 

unRAID is a NAS with the ability to run dockers and VMs but note that you must have a compatible motherboard and CPU for VM capability.  Use this link to read more about this (https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/VM_Management#Determining_HVM.2FIOMMU_Hardware_Support).

 

On 3/7/2023 at 7:33 AM, moisemust said:

can I use a single hard drive for all of them since I think they would be images so just files.

 

I know what you mean by using "one hard drive" but unRAID doesn't work like the multi-boot system you have right now.  Your hard drives (or single hard drive) become "the array" which simply means that they all appear as one big drive that all apps and VMs will use as storage.  If you use an app to back up your data then you're data is safe but since unRAID is a NAS you can add more hard drives and designate one or two of these drives as a parity drive.  Now the system has redundancy so that if a drive fails you simply replace it and your VMs will never know that something happened.  No need to restore from the backup.

 

[moisemust]

Thanks for the reply.

 

4 hours ago, TimTheSettler said:

I have less powerful machines that are running unRAID (as you can see in my signature below).  Lots of people do.  The trick is what you plan to do with the unRAID system.  That might overtax it down the road.

 

OK I'd like to run Windows 11 for sure (for basic tasks like word processing, web surfing, video playback), maybe macOS (for the same tasks as Windows, until Apple stops supporting Intel systems). I'd run the VMs one at a time I think. I have 3 docker/portainer containers : Plex media server (I only have media up to 1080p, My TV is 4K but I'd rather play the few UHD Blu-rays I own from the disks themselves in my XBox One X), homeassistant and maybe pi-hole (which is currently running on a raspberry Pi 3).

4 hours ago, TimTheSettler said:

I know what you mean by using "one hard drive" but unRAID doesn't work like the multi-boot system you have right now.  Your hard drives (or single hard drive) become "the array" which simply means that they all appear as one big drive that all apps and VMs will use as storage.  If you use an app to back up your data then you're data is safe but since unRAID is a NAS you can add more hard drives and designate one or two of these drives as a parity drive.  Now the system has redundancy so that if a drive fails you simply replace it and your VMs will never know that something happened.  No need to restore from the backup.

 

I know it won't be like a regular system but I thought you could build different raid arrays/shares, like in omv. Also I didn't mean installing the OSes like in any other computer. I know in virtualbox and other virtualization software VMs consist of one or few files. I was just wondering how unraid users store them.

 

I read somewhere that the parity drive must be at least as big as the biggest data drive in the system. I currently have a raid 5 of 8 TB consisting of 3 4 TB drives. If I understand correctly in unraid I'd need a 4th 4 TB drive for parity?

[itimpi]

46 minutes ago, moisemust said:

I currently have a raid 5 of 8 TB consisting of 3 4 TB drives. If I understand correctly in unraid I'd need a 4th 4 TB drive for parity?

In Unraid you would have 8TB of usable space with 3 drives as you would lose one drive to parity.

[moisemust]

4 minutes ago, itimpi said:

In Unraid you would have 8TB of usable space with 3 drives as you would lose one drive to parity.

Ok thanks for clearing that up!

[TimTheSettler]

16 hours ago, moisemust said:

Ok thanks for clearing that up!

 

What itimpi is saying is that what you have now will be the same on unRAID.  Today you have 8TB in 3x4TB drives and with unRAID you will have the same thing because in both cases one drive is lost to parity.

 

17 hours ago, moisemust said:

I thought you could build different raid arrays/shares

 

You don't need lots of different raid arrays.  The array acts as one big pool of storage.  This is how all NAS systems work.  But you can definitely create lots of shares or directories on that array.  A share is just a folder with special permissions that can be seen from outside of the system.  Your VM doesn't need to use a share but it can if you want it to.  The VM image's "hard drive" would just be a directory on the array.  Maybe @itimpi can help clarify how the Windows VM would work.  I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear or being helpful.  Sorry, if that's the case.  The best thing is to just give it a try.

 

If your existing hard drives have data on them, data that you want to keep, then DON'T use them in the new unRAID system since unRAID will format the drive.  All NAS systems will do that.  The best thing is to use new drives that are either empty or you don't mind overwriting and then copy the data from the old drives to the new unRAID system.  Once the old drives are empty you just plug them into unRAID and then you have more storage.

[moisemust]

I know all of this but thanks anyways. I guess I watched a bad YouTube video that "explained" all of this badly and created confusion. What I gathered from it was that Unraid needed an extra volume for parity other than a raid 5 array in any other NAS system which I found weird. So thanks for clearing the confusion that built up without any reason.

 

I used to work in IT but only on Windows client systems. All I know about Linux, NASes or macOS I learned by myself and still consider myself a newbie on Linux even if I'm not afraid of using command line.

[itimpi]

18 hours ago, moisemust said:

Also I didn't mean installing the OSes like in any other computer. I know in virtualbox and other virtualization software VMs consist of one or few files. I was just wondering how unraid users store them.

Assuming you are talking about disk images (e.g. .vdi files under VirtualBox) that the VM sees as if they were a disk drive then the same applies on Unraid.   As far as the basic Unraid system is concerned these are just a file like any other file.    One constraint using Unraid is that such a file must fit onto a drive (I.e. cannot span drives) as under Unraid each array drive is a self-contained filing system (that could potentially be read in isolation outside Unraid). 

[moisemust]

OK thanks for the clarification I thought the array would count as a single drive. I'll have to see how it's done by myself.

[itimpi]

3 hours ago, moisemust said:

I thought the array would count as a single drive.

A User Share on the array can span multiple drives under the share name so you get a single view of the folders and/or files within that share. It is just that any individual file is always contained on a single drive.   That means no file can be larger than the drive that holds it.