Is a Core i5 enough for using VMs?

[moisemust]

Hi.

I'm planning to build an unraid system to replace my very old PC running openmediavault which acts as a backup of my synology NAS. I'd also like to run VMs. I'm sure of using Windows 11 and maybe Ubuntu and macOS (for which I already found a tutorial). I have a spare i5 8500 but I have to find a 1151 motherboard and since they're very expensive on my country's eBay I thought I might as well buy a more recent motherboard and CPU. I'm just not sure if an i5 10400F or the spare 8400 I already have if I go the 1151 route would be good enough since I'm new to both unraid and virtualizing.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Gragorg]

The I5 10400f has 6 cores /12 threads. Windows minimum is 2 cores. So 1 core with hyperthread partner. I would assign 2 cores with two matching hyper thread cores. That leaves you 4 cores (8 threads)   to run server and dockers. If you want to run multiple VMs at the same time you should look for a CPU with more cores. 

[moisemust]

Thanks for the reply. What would you recommend? At the moment I'm using docker on omv for plex media server and homeassistant. And I might as well use it for pi hole which i'm currently running on a raspberry pi 3.

 

Also regarding drives, my data is currently on a raid 5 array of 3 4 TB HDDs. If I understand correctly I need a 4th array drive or is it the one already included in my raid 5?

[Gragorg]

CPU is hard one to reccomend.  I prefer Intel as I like to use Intel quicksync for plex transcoding.   Something with 10, 12 or more cores with hyper threading would be more appropriate. Raid 5 holds some parity information on all disks. On unraid the parity drive does not hold data.  So 3 4tb drives would give you 8tb of space with 1 drive for parity protection.  Four drive (4tb) would give you 12tb with 1 drive for parity. 

[moisemust]

4 hours ago, Gragorg said:

CPU is hard one to reccomend.  I prefer Intel as I like to use Intel quicksync for plex transcoding.   Something with 10, 12 or more cores with hyper threading would be more appropriate.

 

OK That sounds very expensive. I'd rather keep my very old openmediavault PC and build a new PC for my office room. I might try Unraid's trial period though.

Thanks anyway.

 

4 hours ago, Gragorg said:

Raid 5 holds some parity information on all disks. On unraid the parity drive does not hold data.  So 3 4tb drives would give you 8tb of space with 1 drive for parity protection.  Four drive (4tb) would give you 12tb with 1 drive for parity. 

 

I know that, I just read somewhere that you need an extra parity drive in unraid. I didn't understand if that was that. Thanks for clearing that up !

[Gragorg]

13 minutes ago, moisemust said:

OK That sounds very expensive. I'd rather keep my very old openmediavault PC and build a new PC for my office room. I might try Unraid's trial period though.

Thanks anyway.

To be fair you would be running 4 OS at the same time.

[moisemust]

14 minutes ago, Gragorg said:

To be fair you would be running 4 OS at the same time.

No, one desktop OS at a time along with Unraid itself. I’d close any one running before starting another. That’s why I didn’t understand the core count you made in a previous post.

[Gragorg]

You should be good if you run one at at time

 

[moisemust]

4 minutes ago, Gragorg said:

You should be good if you run one at at time

 

OK I was worried for a moment lol. Last question: Do I need a GPU in the system if I choose a non-F i5? I would be using the desktop VMs for basic office work at home so I don't see the point of a graphics card if I can use the CPU's integrated graphics. Except if unraid requires it of course! I don't really game anyway besides I have the desktop in my room for that if I wanted to.

[Aran]

To give you an idea, I run an i7 6700k (4C/8T) with a VM, homeassistant and 13 dockers. The vm is only lightly used and jellyfin for 1080p (cpu)transcode.

The cpu does sit at 100% when transcoding, unzipping, and moving large iso's (to sata ssd) at the same time f.e.

If it was at 50%, then i spend too much on my cpu

Btw, you don't 'need' parity for unraid to work. I don't have a parity drive in my system, just good backups.

[moisemust]

15 hours ago, Aran said:

To give you an idea, I run an i7 6700k (4C/8T) with a VM, homeassistant and 13 dockers. The vm is only lightly used and jellyfin for 1080p (cpu)transcode.

The cpu does sit at 100% when transcoding, unzipping, and moving large iso's (to sata ssd) at the same time f.e.

 

OH wow! 😳 😅

15 hours ago, Aran said:

Btw, you don't 'need' parity for unraid to work. I don't have a parity drive in my system, just good backups.

 

Oh OK I will probably turn the tables though with unraid becoming my main NAS and my Synology NAS becoming a backup... If it works well with an i5. I'd probably use it anyway. I now see the reason why everyone seems to use an i7 i9 or Xeon whenever I hear about unraid.

I'd just run 1 VM at a time with Pi hole, Plex media server and home assistant in the background. If I don't keep Pi hole as it is on my raspberry pi 3.

15 hours ago, Aran said:

If it was at 50%, then i spend too much on my cpu

I'm sorry I didn't understand that sentence. 

Edit: never mind I realized just now that you didn't say you spend too much TIME on your cpu.

Edited March 10, 2023 by moisemust

[moisemust]

So would an i5 13400 be a better choice? I read somewhere on this forum that hybrid CPUs weren't compatible with unraid but the thread was several years old. Is it fixed now?

[TimTheSettler]

On 3/8/2023 at 7:46 AM, Gragorg said:

Windows minimum is 2 cores.

 

The Microsoft site shows no such restriction.  In fact you can create a Windows VM with only one pinned CPU (although a paired CPU/thread is recommended).

 

Also note that CPU pinning simply limits the app/VM to using only that CPU.  unRAID will use that CPU depending on the load of the server.  To make the CPU pin exclusive you need to use CPU isolation.

 

On 3/9/2023 at 2:58 PM, moisemust said:

So would an i5 13400 be a better choice?

 

In general, @Gragorg's advice is good.  I don't mean to slag what he's saying.  It's just that you should use what you have right now because it's what you've got and might be all you need.  If you find that you need more power then change the VM to have more CPUs or RAM and if you're maxing out the resources of your unRAID server then upgrade the hardware.  This is easy to do and unRAID will simply see a more powerful engine under the hood.  The beauty of the VM concept is that you can fiddle with the CPU/RAM assignments to get the desired performance you want.

 

If anyone feels that this advice is wrong then please correct me.  My goal here is to get people using unRAID without them having to spend money on a system they may not need.  It's very easy to upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and RAM without impacting your server.  I've already done it.

 

[moisemust]

4 hours ago, TimTheSettler said:

you should use what you have right now because it's what you've got and might be all you need.

This is exactly what I thought but I thought I’d busted my mobo while installing the new CPU (a 2nd hand i5 8500, replacing my i3 8100). It would only POST with a single stick of RAM. As I bent LGA pins in the past rendering the mobo completely useless I thought it’s what happened. So I went on eBay looking for 1151 mobos but the only cheap ones are 1151 v1, incompatible with my CPUs. As v2 mobos are VERY expensive at the moment I bought a 1700 DDR4 compatible mobo on Amazon along with an i5 13500… only to find out a few hours later that removing the CPU and RAM did the trick, my 1151 mobo is working again, all RAM sticks being recognized. I don’t really regret my purchase but I have a 2nd old chipset mobo I have no use for at the moment. I might keep it to replace my hackintosh’s mobo if it dies before my CPU.

[ConnerVT]

I must agree with @TimTheSettler.  Probably the most impossible question asked repeatably on this forum is "Will this hardware work for my server?..." followed by "I'll run Plex, a web server and maybe a couple of VMs...".  What makes it difficult is is not *what* applications are run, but how *hard* they are run.  Is Plex just used by family at home, maybe 1 or 2 direct streams over LAN?  Or do you share with dozens of friends, each requiring media to be transcoded?  Is the web server visited infrequently by a few family members to view some pictures, or is your side business run on it?  VMs can be a lightweight home automation platform or a full blown Windows install to run a high end game.  Then to complicate it more, do you plan on doing all of it at once, or are some things idle when others are in use?  The Devil is in the details.

 

The good news is that the Unraid platform performs really well even with modest almost-modern hardware.  You can read my post linked in my siggy, I originally built my server with a retired 1500X cpu, motherboard and 16GB of mismatched DRAM.  I ran 18 dockers on that for over a year, and it ran flawlessly.

 

But as Tim said, Unraid can be a rabbit hole where you start wanting to do more.  There are a couple of other projects I want to try which require a VM platform.  I felt 4c/8t 1500X and 16GB may be stretching the limit, plus I wanted to configure something on a second GPU, so I updated to a 5700G to double my core count, and added a new MB (more PCIe slots) and DRAM (prices great at the moment).  It was likely the easiest and most pain free upgrade I've ever done.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by ConnerVT
speeling

[moisemust]

On 3/11/2023 at 5:15 PM, ConnerVT said:

Probably the most impossible question asked repeatably on this forum is "Will this hardware work for my server?..."

Apologies, but I don't think I've seen something preventing this question like a sticky thread or something. If I simply didn't see it, I'm sorry.

 

On 3/11/2023 at 5:15 PM, ConnerVT said:

"I'll run Plex, a web server and maybe a couple of VMs...".  What makes it difficult is is not *what* applications are run, but how *hard* they are run.  Is Plex just used by family at home, maybe 1 or 2 direct streams over LAN?  Or do you share with dozens of friends, each requiring media to be transcoded?  Is the web server visited infrequently by a few family members to view some pictures, or is your side business run on it?

Well as I said my VMs would be for light work like word processing or web browsing.

 

I'd use Plex as well but I live alone. I'd use it mainly at home but could occasionally use it on my phone as well and only for myself.

 

I'd probably use home assistant and pi hole as well.

 

In other news I received my new processor and motherboard this weekend. I put it in my former omv case which has a lot of room for storage. The system posted and I started configuring my unraid system. I had to leave for work this morning with 2 hours of syncing left for building the array. But I think it was the time left for the first HDD, as it reported a size of 4TB while I have 4 4TB HDDs all detected by unraid.

 

I also put a 1TB Samsung m.2 SSD for cache but I haven't found the option yet. I guess I'll have to wait for the array to finish first?