ATLAS My Virtualized unRAID server


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Some usb drives show up as an actual disk drive. and you can email tom and explain the issue and he will swap your license to the other drive

 

Hi generalz, thanks for the tip but I managed to get it working without configuring passthrough as per Johnm's tutorial. I figured out my problem was that ESXi can see the Asmedia USB 3.0 controller on my motherboard and it is available for passthrough, but it doesn't seem to work for virtualising. I was using the Asmedia controller because the ESXi USB stick was connected to the Intel USB 2.0 controller and I didnt want to pass that through because then my host wouldnt boot.

 

I decided to swap the 2 devices around to see if ESXi would boot off the Asmedia controller which it did so, I then noticed I was able to see the Unraid USB stick plugged into the Intel controller from the CLI. I tried to do passthrough of the Intel controller but as before, on the next reboot it disappeared. Not sure why that didnt work, my hardware supports VT-d and VT-x, ESXi confirms it, I was also able to passthrough my M1015 card without issue.

 

Anyway after a some cursing and Googling I managed to make it work by skipping the whole passthrough bit, I went straight to the VM, added a USB controller configured as XHCI, then added a USB device and bang the Unraid USB stick was there in the list. I booted the VM with BetaQuasi's vmdk attached and it came up perfectly.

 

After all that I only have one question, given that the M1015 card is passed through, will the Unraid VM see the disks and data if I move them from the old server to the new one? I'd like to be able to just move the disks across without having to do a massive data migration.

 

Thanks.

 

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Anyway after a some cursing and Googling I managed to make it work by skipping the whole passthrough bit, I went straight to the VM, added a USB controller configured as XHCI, then added a USB device and bang the Unraid USB stick was there in the list. I booted the VM with BetaQuasi's vmdk attached and it came up perfectly.

That is how I do it. No need to pass thru a USB controller, just add one in VM settings.

 

After all that I only have one question, given that the M1015 card is passed through, will the Unraid VM see the disks and data if I move them from the old server to the new one? I'd like to be able to just move the disks across without having to do a massive data migration.

 

What version unRAID is the old server? You can just move the disks if 5

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, i can't fin it anywhere on the forum.

 

Anyway, when using the new unraid GUI (or simplefeatures before) the system information screen shows some weird results.

I have added a screenshot to clarify.

 

My other vm's containing windows for example do a good job of getting the correct info through from ESXi.

Is there a solution so this become's a bit more tidy?

 

Also lm-sensors does not find any sensors, can this be worked around too?

 

*edit: forgot attachment :)

info.png.176973e61a42c7b82c02fba16ba52de7.png

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So, long story short ...

 

Any data issues with the MV8 hack? Besides a 10% increase in speed ... any reason I'd pass the MV8 throught? (Yes, 10% increase in speed *is* nice, but .... ) (along with a broader compatibility - having a RFS disk has a greater chance of data recovery vs a VMDK on a VMFS disk) ... have you seen this cause any issues on the ESXi host?

 

Would you consider it stable after 12 to 18 months of usage?

 

I mean, I'd love to pass my SASL through, but if Vmware doesn't do it, ... there is probably a reason.... Should i trust the last 3 1.5 tb drives with this?

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After watching this thread (and drooling on occassions) for well more than a year, I finally acquired the last hardware components for an ATLAS-like server setup.  After a couple of days tinkering, I got it all up and running!  ESXi 5.5, unRAID 5.0.4 all running in a Norco 4224 on a Supermicro X-9SCM-F and a single M1015, flashed to IT mode (on the Supermicro board!) with 16 GB memory (first upgrade will be another 16 GB early in the new year).  The only issues I had were on the flashed M1015, and only then because I was looking for the LSI BIOS and the screen never showed up.  Only to find out later that the drives were indeed passed through and available to the unRAID VM. 

 

Next steps are to migrate the numerous VM's from Workstation and to validate each of the backplanes in the Norco, followed by the SABnzbd, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard setup I've been running for about two years now on a Workstation VM.

 

Thanks to Johnm and ALL of the numerous contributors to make the acquisition, installation, and configuration of all this so incredibly easy!

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I spent over 8 month following the topic in this thread and save money to buy all the parts. Thanks OP for the clear steps and intuitive graph to make this happen!

 

Here is my setup inspired by the Atlas:

 

SuperMicro X10SLM-F

16GB Kingston ECC unbuffered 1600Mhz

Xeon E3-1230-V3 Haswell

Native LSI 9211-8i

Samsung 840Pro 256GB SSD

8 Old Varies size HDD from 640GB -2T

Old ATI Radeon 2400 Video card

Be Quiet 650W Gold certified

Sandisk Cruz 16G nano flash <---install ESXi

Kingston 8G flash <---install Unraid config/license

VMware ESXi 5.5

 

right now I am only running two VMs,

windows 8.1Pro with 4 vCPU and 8Gb Ram, "Physicalized" as my daily home PC

--passthrough #1: X10SLM-F Onboard Host Controller #1 <-- have two USB3.0 two USB2.0 at back panel for Keyboard and mouse.

--passthrough #2: ATI Radeon 2400 Video card for Direct connect to my 24" LCD.

(other forum specify only ATI card worked. mine is 6 years old still worked!the best single slot card you can have nowadays is Radeon 7750 if you are into gaming. any GPU more powerful will require two PCIe slot spaces)

 

I leave Onboard Host Controller #2 for ESXi. one USB port for the ESXi OS install, one USB port to assign to Unraid. The Controller #2 on this board is the two underneath the IPMI port plus two in the front panel.

 

Unraid:(2 vCPU and 4Gb Ram, maybe overkill)

using the pre-made vmdk from BetaQuasi

using the vmware tools from Zeron

--passthrough #3: LSI 9211-8i (already flashed IT mode)

connect all 8 HDDs no problem

 

all VMs runs on the Samsung SSD.

The good thing about this setup is I can have 10Gig Vmxnet3 connection between windows 8.1 and Unraid. The onboard i210 and i217 is not supported by ESXi so a custom image needs to include the .vib file. Then the ESXi host plug into the household network through 1Gig ASUS-rt66-u router. All household media players connect to unraid just fine. so far so good!

 

 

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After watching this thread (and drooling on occassions) for well more than a year, I finally acquired the last hardware components for an ATLAS-like server setup.  After a couple of days tinkering, I got it all up and running!  ESXi 5.5, unRAID 5.0.4 all running in a Norco 4224 on a Supermicro X-9SCM-F and a single M1015, flashed to IT mode (on the Supermicro board!) with 16 GB memory (first upgrade will be another 16 GB early in the new year).  The only issues I had were on the flashed M1015, and only then because I was looking for the LSI BIOS and the screen never showed up.  Only to find out later that the drives were indeed passed through and available to the unRAID VM. 

 

Next steps are to migrate the numerous VM's from Workstation and to validate each of the backplanes in the Norco, followed by the SABnzbd, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard setup I've been running for about two years now on a Workstation VM.

 

Thanks to Johnm and ALL of the numerous contributors to make the acquisition, installation, and configuration of all this so incredibly easy!

 

How is ESXi 5.5 working for you? Is everything working as it should, including the Health Status?  What bios are you running on your supermicro?

 

Regards,

 

tm

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After watching this thread (and drooling on occassions) for well more than a year, I finally acquired the last hardware components for an ATLAS-like server setup.  After a couple of days tinkering, I got it all up and running!  ESXi 5.5, unRAID 5.0.4 all running in a Norco 4224 on a Supermicro X-9SCM-F and a single M1015, flashed to IT mode (on the Supermicro board!) with 16 GB memory (first upgrade will be another 16 GB early in the new year).  The only issues I had were on the flashed M1015, and only then because I was looking for the LSI BIOS and the screen never showed up.  Only to find out later that the drives were indeed passed through and available to the unRAID VM. 

 

Next steps are to migrate the numerous VM's from Workstation and to validate each of the backplanes in the Norco, followed by the SABnzbd, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard setup I've been running for about two years now on a Workstation VM.

 

Thanks to Johnm and ALL of the numerous contributors to make the acquisition, installation, and configuration of all this so incredibly easy!

 

How is ESXi 5.5 working for you? Is everything working as it should, including the Health Status?  What bios are you running on your supermicro?

 

Regards,

 

tm

 

 

Health Status appears to be working fine, although I haven't really stressed the unit as of yet.  Bios on Supermicro is v 2.+ (I'll record it next time I reboot the system - a few days away).  5.5 appears to be working similarly to v 5.0 that I had a very small amount of experience with.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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  • 1 year later...

Howdy all, by request I've moved this and 2 other topics to this "unRAID as Guest" board.  I'm wondering if this topic or any other would be more useful if 'stickied'.  I'll be happy to sticky anything, if there seems a consensus, but I personally have no experience with the subject of this board.  Naturally, you don't want to overuse the sticky feature, because then you can be 'stuck' with an outdated and irrelevant topic at the top.

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