phreshjive Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Figured someone in this thread could answer easily: Building my first ESXI unRAID server. It will run pfSense, unRAID, Plex Server and Plex Home Theatre. So far my build includes an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, an on-order Intel i5-4570T processor, a U-NAS NSC-800 Chassis, and 8 x Seagate Barracuda Green 5900RPM ST320005N4A1AS. Wanted a RAID card that was efficient under ESXI. Heard from someone when considering the IBM M1015 that something like the LSI 8708EM2 with battery backed write back cache of 256MB would make it a ton faster. He recommended I went with a card supporting cache if ESXI is my use as ESXI has no o/s cache and throughput would be horrible. Could someone recommend a card and/or comment if this is accurate? Quote Link to comment
BetaQuasi Posted October 27, 2013 Author Share Posted October 27, 2013 That's only accurate if he is referring to the datastore for ESXi, not the connected UNRAID disks. Something like the mentioned LSI card would be great for attaching a few drives to and making a raid10 datastore or similar, but most of us just go with a SSD. It's not going to help at all with UNRAID connected drives. Sent from my GT-N7105T using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
BetaQuasi Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 FYI, I'm not going to update the image list with any of these small point releases that are coming out at the moment. They don't really do that much in terms of functionality, and I'm not updating my servers, so I'm not going to put up an updated .vmdk Next update for me will be the 64-bit release. In the meantime, the existing images are easily updated if you want to do it yourself - instructions are in this thread. Quote Link to comment
phreshjive Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Ended up updating to 5.0.3 using the method described in the thread. If I were to install the Plex plugin, what would be the best method if I am using the VMDK? Quote Link to comment
BetaQuasi Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 Same way as non-vmdk, plugin installation is no different Quote Link to comment
phreshjive Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated. Despite it being 5 AM and working on no sleep, I'll give it a go. Quote Link to comment
Dephcon Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Do you mind adding/linking the upgrade instructions to the first post? Quote Link to comment
BetaQuasi Posted December 5, 2013 Author Share Posted December 5, 2013 Sure, will try and remember to do that tonight Sent from my GT-N7105T using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
bmdegraaf Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Managed to upgrade as well to 5.0.3 Many thanks for all the instructions. However, no matter what I do I seem not be able to update to 5.0.4 Keep on receiving A syslinux menu.c32 problem. Any idea to get around this? Quote Link to comment
guitarlp Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Managed to upgrade as well to 5.0.3 Many thanks for all the instructions. However, no matter what I do I seem not be able to update to 5.0.4 Keep on receiving A syslinux menu.c32 problem. Any idea to get around this? Remove the new syslinux folder from 5.0.4. You should only be copying over the bzimage and bzroot files (along with the readme if you want). Quote Link to comment
bmdegraaf Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Many thanks! That did the trick. Quote Link to comment
guitarlp Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Many thanks! That did the trick. No problem. I had the same issue and banged my head around it for about an hour. Then I re-read the instructions (carefully this time) and once I removed that folder things worked for me as well. Quote Link to comment
Paulitix Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 Have a look in your UnRAID gui, the vmdk shows up as one of the unassigned drives at the bottom, with a blue icon. If you used my vmdk it shows up as 1.07gb. In my case it was sda1 Sent from my GT-N7105T using Tapatalk 4 Beta I am not seeing this despite using your vmdk. Am I missing something simple?? Quote Link to comment
Madevil Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Works fine great! do you plan to make a version for 5.0.5 and for the new 6.0 beta ? best regards Quote Link to comment
mrdally204 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I am currently running unRAID on my server. I wish to virtualize this unRAID instance and use the hardware for more servers Knowing this and having 2tb of data already in an array in unRAID, how can I go about transforming my current set up into a virtual machine install without losing any information? Quote Link to comment
BetaQuasi Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 I will probably get to the new versions, but it may be a week or so away as I'm on vacation at the moment. Quote Link to comment
dikkiedirk Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 I like to transfer my test server, on a X8SIL-F with X3460 and 8GB and SAS2LP-MV8 , running 5.0beta12a to ESXi. I just installed ESXi 5.0 update3 on a second USB stick in the box and it boots OK. Unraid is also still fully functional booting from the first USB stick. I still need to install the management software on my laptop. Can anyone give me some pointers on what to do next? I plan to take a pre-built vmdk and downgrade it to my 5.0beta12a configuration that runs on the first USB stick. Quote Link to comment
piotrasd Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Hi This is my build of unRAID 6b3 - vmdk (1GB partition) https://copy.com/xm92LofkhfKrzv46 Quote Link to comment
arbitrary Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Hi This is my build of unRAID 6b3 - vmdk (1GB partition) https://copy.com/xm92LofkhfKrzv46 Thanks for this! Any issues with clean shutdown? Or using VMWare tools? Quote Link to comment
mrdally204 Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 I would like to ask again as I did not see a reply to my original question. I currently have Unraid installed and working great as a server. I would like to keep all my content and current configuration but move the unraid instance to a virtual machine as the server is being underutilized. Assuming this is possible, is there special instructions I can follow to accomplish this? Can someone with a bit of knowledge please give me feedback or a bit of guidance? I would like to run a mythtv back-end on the same server for home pvr. My CPU (Celeron G1610 Processor) supports VT-x but not vt-d. My motherboard (asrock b75 pro3-m vt-x) supports vt-d. Is it worth updating my CPU to also support vt-d? Thanks. Quote Link to comment
MacModMachine Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 I would like to ask again as I did not see a reply to my original question. I currently have Unraid installed and working great as a server. I would like to keep all my content and current configuration but move the unraid instance to a virtual machine as the server is being underutilized. Assuming this is possible, is there special instructions I can follow to accomplish this? Can someone with a bit of knowledge please give me feedback or a bit of guidance? I would like to run a mythtv back-end on the same server for home pvr. My CPU (Celeron G1610 Processor) supports VT-x but not vt-d. My motherboard (asrock b75 pro3-m vt-x) supports vt-d. Is it worth updating my CPU to also support vt-d? Thanks. yes , you will need VT-D to do passthrough (pass hardware through to VM's) the only other way is make a data store on the drives and use them inside the VM (not recommended) you should be able to find an 1155 socket cpu to support VT-D for 200-300$ depending on that motherboards configuration you will need a PCIE sata controller , i recommend a M1015 / i9220 based card, with 2 SAS forward breakout cables. Quote Link to comment
joshpond Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 I would like to ask again as I did not see a reply to my original question. I currently have Unraid installed and working great as a server. I would like to keep all my content and current configuration but move the unraid instance to a virtual machine as the server is being underutilized. Assuming this is possible, is there special instructions I can follow to accomplish this? Can someone with a bit of knowledge please give me feedback or a bit of guidance? I would like to run a mythtv back-end on the same server for home pvr. My CPU (Celeron G1610 Processor) supports VT-x but not vt-d. My motherboard (asrock b75 pro3-m vt-x) supports vt-d. Is it worth updating my CPU to also support vt-d? Thanks. I've just finished moving my unRaid build inside a ESXi VM with new controllers as well. As mentioned you will need a controller you can pass through and VT-D. Take a screen shot of your array/disks first for backup. when you power up the VM just reassign the disks and you are good to go. With version 5 I don't think you even need to assign the disks. Josh Quote Link to comment
arbitrary Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I would like to ask again as I did not see a reply to my original question. I currently have Unraid installed and working great as a server. I would like to keep all my content and current configuration but move the unraid instance to a virtual machine as the server is being underutilized. Assuming this is possible, is there special instructions I can follow to accomplish this? Can someone with a bit of knowledge please give me feedback or a bit of guidance? I would like to run a mythtv back-end on the same server for home pvr. My CPU (Celeron G1610 Processor) supports VT-x but not vt-d. My motherboard (asrock b75 pro3-m vt-x) supports vt-d. Is it worth updating my CPU to also support vt-d? Thanks. I would think its worth it, but be prepared to possibly spend a lot of time tinkering and also possibly buying more hardware that will work properly with esxi Quote Link to comment
jesseasi Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Any plans for 5.05? My old way of using the plpbt.iso does not seem to work anymore - I have to manually select the boot process each time the VM ever needs to be restarted. Currently running 5.05 and anxious to give this a try. Thanks! Quote Link to comment
joshpond Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Any plans for 5.05? My old way of using the plpbt.iso does not seem to work anymore - I have to manually select the boot process each time the VM ever needs to be restarted. Currently running 5.05 and anxious to give this a try. Thanks! Have you made a custom plop iso that boots into USB? Josh Quote Link to comment
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