So there are plugins to handle most of the things that I'm interest in doing, but they are tasks that can also be accomplished via virtual machines. Assuming my hardware can handle the workload (Core i5-2500K), which do you prefer and why? The things I'm looking to do are:

 

sabnzbd

sickbeard

Couch Potato

Plex Media Server

btsync

crashplan (looks possible as a plugin, but it's a MAJOR pain)

 

There are plugins for all of the above apps, but I would assume that administration/updating would be easier through a virtual machine. Is that a fair assumption? Also, crashplan (although not compltely necessary for me) looks like a major pain in the butt if does headlessly via plugin.

 

Other things that might come in handy, but I don't really need:

 

iTunes <- requires VM

ownCloud

web server

personally I prefer VM over plugin.

 

I am currently in process of building a VM server so I can run most of the things you are planning to run.

and I want it in VM over unRaid Plugin

 

 

 

 

 

 

In General:

 

In the interest of unRAID, the best would be to have zero plugins on unraid (screen/openssh/etc don't count).  They add levels of complication and increase the chance of causing issues.  Things like sab/couch/sockbeard are super easy to install on Ubuntu and can live in harmony on the same VM, in fact they work better on the same VM.  For the other apps you can separate them out or bundle them on as many VMs as you like.

 

Unfortunately in your case, the K series Intel CPUs don't support VT-d and hyper-threading.  I believe VT-d is required for pass-through so you wont be able to virtualize unRAID.  You would need to swap your CPU for a 2500/2600 non-K or a compatible 4core Xeon.

You're certainly correct that my CPU and mobo don't have VT-d. The hyperthreading seems less important to me since I'm really only looking at one additional VM.

 

However, from my understanding, virtualbox can handle it all just fine (even without VT-d). It just causes more overhead since there's an additional layer that must be implemented in software instead of hardware. But considering I'm not doing anything taxing, I think it should work. (Emphasis on "think".)

In General:

 

In the interest of unRAID, the best would be to have zero plugins on unraid (screen/openssh/etc don't count).  They add levels of complication and increase the chance of causing issues.  Things like sab/couch/sockbeard are super easy to install on Ubuntu and can live in harmony on the same VM, in fact they work better on the same VM.  For the other apps you can separate them out or bundle them on as many VMs as you like.

This is something that had crossed my mind.

personally I prefer VM over plugin.

 

I am currently in process of building a VM server so I can run most of the things you are planning to run.

and I want it in VM over unRaid Plugin

This is how I would do it (if I do it).

So there are plugins to handle most of the things that I'm interest in doing, but they are tasks that can also be accomplished via virtual machines. Assuming my hardware can handle the workload (Core i5-2500K), which do you prefer and why?

 

VM's.

 

It's not worth getting involved in the tangle of non core unraid packages built by third parties. Especially right now where things are actually changing in the core and there are now at least four different community plugin management tools available on top.

 

You'll spend more time trying to keep that all playing nicely whereas on a saner system you can just apt-get install / yum install <program>

 

This is not meant to take away from the work the community has done with plugins but there isn't a coherent whole. This might also change if unraid ever formally introduces a core plugin manager - but that was promised for 5 and no sign, so I wouldn't wait around.

 

I run crashplan directly on unraid (though I'm not really sure why anymore - legacy really) and also encfs as I want the unencrypted results available from samba via the unraid host.

 

Everything else is on VM's with storage nfs mounted. Now NFS actually works in unraid 5 - no problems and so much less drama. I'm back on stock webgui as well so everything is as vanilla as can be.

virtualbox can handle it all just fine (even without VT-d). It just causes more overhead since there's an additional layer that must be implemented in software instead of hardware. But considering I'm not doing anything taxing, I think it should work. (Emphasis on "think".)

 

I would stay away from virtualbox myself for hosting an unraid VM.  ESX is not an option without VT-d, but Xen might be an option, it cant hurt to install Citrix XenServer and see what you can do with it on your hardware if you can take the downtime.

virtualbox can handle it all just fine (even without VT-d). It just causes more overhead since there's an additional layer that must be implemented in software instead of hardware. But considering I'm not doing anything taxing, I think it should work. (Emphasis on "think".)

 

I would stay away from virtualbox myself for hosting an unraid VM.  ESX is not an option without VT-d, but Xen might be an option, it cant hurt to install Citrix XenServer and see what you can do with it on your hardware if you can take the downtime.

 

You can presumably do raw disk mapping without vt-d. Which would make ESX still plausible (general controller support in esx pending of course).

 

Not a very good solution but nonetheless..

virtualbox can handle it all just fine (even without VT-d). It just causes more overhead since there's an additional layer that must be implemented in software instead of hardware. But considering I'm not doing anything taxing, I think it should work. (Emphasis on "think".)

 

I would stay away from virtualbox myself for hosting an unraid VM.  ESX is not an option without VT-d, but Xen might be an option, it cant hurt to install Citrix XenServer and see what you can do with it on your hardware if you can take the downtime.

unRAID would be my host, and I would set virtualbox on top of it using the plugin by theone. All the other apps would live in the VM. I already have a large unRAID array in place that I don't want to mess with.

That's another scenario that I wouldn't recommend either.  I can't attest to the (un)stability of virtualbox, but I wouldn't want it on top of my unraid server.  I would suggest you do some testing on a second bare metal unraid test system, if you have some extra hardware.  Converting unraid into a VM is so easy because there's no conversion.  It pretty much boots everything off your existing usb key, as long as the VM can see all your disks you are golden.

 

I recently went from bare metal to VM and it was way more straight forward and easy then I assumed it would be.

Virtualbox works wonderfukly and very stable even with windiws as a vm;-)

Virtualbox works wonderfukly and very stable even with windiws as a vm;-)

 

How long have you been running it ontop of unraid?

I ran virtualbox on top of unraid for a long time before moving to an esxi setup.

 

It works fine. With two caveats :

 

- Performance was terrible. I doubt my cpu helped much and obviously disk i/o to the virtual disk wasn't great.

 

- You still have to mess around with plugins and the like to get it running on top of unraid in the first place. If the point of virtualising is to make your life easier and avoid layering things on top of unraid..it's failing at the first hurdle

I recently went from bare metal to VM and it was way more straight forward and easy then I assumed it would be.

Which hypervisor are you using? I would need something that's compatible with my existing hardware because I can't afford something else.

I'm using ESXi 5.0U2. As boof mentioned, RDM is possible on esx without VT-d, but it depends on your hardware. Xen is another possible option.

 

If you'd like to list your hardware, we can make some recommendations.

CPU: Core i5-2500K

Motherboard: ASUS P8H77-I LGA

RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS3

 

I currently have 4 mismatched HDD's (1 parity and 3 storage), and intend to add a 128GB SSD as a cache in the near future (pulling from another machine).

 

I'm not opposed to using my one expansion slot for an additional NIC if it doesn't cost too much. The motherboard has 6 SATA ports so I can get by on that.

Ah you're on ITX!  That makes it more complex.   

You're limited to a single storage controller via H77, but I believe the realtek NIC is supported with 5.x.  The only bit that you might not be into is add a drive/ssd for the ESX datastore.  In situations liek this for really small systems, vbox might be a viable solution if it's stable.

 

boof - can RDM work with a datastore and mapped drive on the same controller?  I've never used it before.

I will try and add a little help,

 

I have two separate servers, one for unRAID and one a baremetal ESXI. The unRAID is plain nothing added. The second server is running pfsense, sab/sick, plex and newsnab each in its own vm, and a few more so I can tinker without ruining anything else. No need to pass through anything.

 

The only issue I have is between plex and unRAID when it is spun down it seems to not automatically update plex, although since I am a few weeks behind any tv shows I watch it has never been an issue for me to investigate.

 

I found this:

 

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1731214

 

It's a thread regarding ESXi for my particular motherboard. Looks like someone has attempted it (albeit with a VT-d capable CPU).

I also have spare PCIe 2-port SATA controller that I can use, but I've only got the one slot so all the VM's would need to share an ethernet port. I don't know enough about this stuff to say whether or not that's possible.

No offense to any ESXi guys, but virtualbox is starting to sound a heck of a lot easier. I'm sure ESXi a great solution for people with appropriate hardware, but it doesn't sound like a I truly fall in that camp. Nothing I'm going to be doing will be incredibly intensive so I'm relatively confident that my system specs will make up for the overhead imposed by virtualbox.

Yeah that's what I was saying,  it might not be worth the effort to do anything beyond virtualbox until your requirements grow larger.

Yeah that's what I was saying,  it might not be worth the effort to do anything beyond virtualbox until your requirements grow larger.

Muchas gracias!

Sometimes it's better (easier) to build a tiny application only VM server.

The HP Micro servers are going for a decent price and with rebates you can save money.

They can run ESX, without pass through, but it's small, quiet, reliable and fairly cost effective.

 

FWIW, I ran my linux machine with a couple of Windows XP/200 and Unix VM's for years without issue using vmware workstation.  Although it's different, I think with Virtual box and one Unix VM you should be fine.