Hi

I'm not using Unraid yet and I do not have any hands-on experience with it - my "Unraid knowledge" comes from watching YouTube videos. I'm here to figure out if what I have in mind is possible with Unraid. Unfortunately I do not have spare HW to test any of it using Unraid's trial license. So please forgive me if my post seems silly.

 

I would like to build one machine that acts as server but since it will be running 7/24 I would also like to use it as a "daily driver"  (I'm living in a loft and therefore this PC will be in my living room anyway).

My current idea is to use Unraid as NAS but also to manage VMs and Containers. So far nothing special and pretty much what Unraid is made for.

 

Additionally this PC should act as backup-server for my brother. I plan to use Unraid's Tailscale integration to grant access.

 

For my "daily driver" I would like to use a Linux VM running on Unraid. This VM should support a multi-monitor setup and of course audio (e.g for YouTube, Teams). For my daily tasks (mostly office, ssh, web-browsing, MS-Teams, remote-desktop) I don't need a dedicated GPU, the iGPU is enough.

When I boot, Unraid preferably starts the "daily-driver-VM" and shows it's desktop on both attached monitors, ready to login.

 

Is this possible? If yes, how do I have to configure and setup Unraid and the VM in order to support this multi-monitor setup?

• do I have to run Unraid in headless mode and pass-through the iGPU and onboard audio to the VM?
• do I need a dedicated GPU to pass-through to the VM? (I would really like to avoid that)
• is there a way without GPU pass-through where the VM can detect and use both monitors out of the box?

 

Last but not least this PC has to "stream" all kind of media content to my "entertainment center". I do use a mini-PC that is connected to my TV and Amp. I would like to be able to show photos to my friends, listen to music and watch movies/series. The mini-PC is running Linux and Kodi. I don't need video-transcoding - so far the mini-PC is powerful enough to play all my media.

 

Here is the HW I'm currently considering:

• Ryzen 9 9950X
• AsRock X870E Taichi Lite or Asus ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi
• 2x Kingston 32GB 5600MT/s DDR5 ECC UDIMM CL46
• 4x 3.5" HDD (documents, photos, movies, music, ISO,...)
• 2x SATA SSD for Cache, VMs, Containers (re-use from old PC)
• 1x NVME SSD for "daily-driver" VM (pass-through, re-use from old laptop)
• 2x 27" LCD (1x HDMI-to-HDMI + 1x USB4-to-HDMI (using DP-ALT) or 1x USB4-to-DP (using DP-ALT + MST))

 

As for VM/Containers, I plan to setup:

• Pi-Hole
• Home Assistant
• Torrent Client
• Win11 VM
• Linux VM to experiment and improve my Linux skills (I'm currently a Linux noob willing to fully switch from Windows)
• Obsidian Notes
• and in the near future some container/VM to experiment with local AI (this will most likely need an dedicated GPU)

 

Thank you very much for your feedback.

Edited January 10, 20251 yr by Tom082

If you search the forum you can find posts that people have successfully passed through an iGPU but seems the general suggestion is to use a dedicated GPU instead (I haven’t done either since I’m not a fan of all-in-one machines). The rest of your requirements can easily be meet with a few dockers.

On 1/8/2025 at 12:48 PM, Tom082 said:

Pi-Hole

As I recall, running this on your server can present the chicken or the egg type of problem.  Many folks have avoided this problem by using a Raspberry pi or a mini PC to run pi-Hole. 

After some more research it seems to only option I have is GPU passthrough.

 

My current understanding is:

• Unraid does not support multi-monitor setups (extended desktops)
• adding multiple virtual displays adapters to the VM does not help since Unraid does not support multi-monitor
• passthrough of the AMD iGPU is finicky and might or might not work stable or not at all

So the best two options for me seem to be

1. Intel CPU with SR-IOV support (unfortunately Arrow Lake is not yet supported in Unraid and needs a newer Kernel)
2. add a discrete GPU

Is my understanding correct?