October 1, 201312 yr I'm interested in reports on whether or not UnRAID will successfully spin down discs when running virtualized. I'm particularly interested in whether this works under XenServer and, if so, with what hardware. Thanks Peter
October 1, 201312 yr to allow unraid to control the disks you will need to pass through the whole controller into VM as in PCI pass through. if you pass the controller, than from unraid stand point, it is running bare-metal and has full control of hardware. check out the XenServer HCL for references but for most VM solutions you need the hardware, both BIOS and CPU to fully support the virtualization extensions as in VT-d and IOMMU(AMD-v??) anything other than Xen MUST have a 100% compatible hardware. Xen is more forgiving(as it has a bigger list of compatible hardware ), but not by much. FYI: when you do PCI pass through the controller and all the drives on it are usable ONLY from that VM. VM host and all the other VMs have no access to the hardware so be careful not to place anything you need outside the unraid VM on that controller.
October 2, 201312 yr Author Thanks for the comprehensive response. I'm looking at building a system based on Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Rev 3.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor I'll be installing 3x cheapish but Xen supported PCIe graphics cards with HDMI, an SATA PCIe controller card and Octopus DVB tuner card. The system will comprise 3x virtual 'htpcs' running MediaPortal driving my lounge, living room & home theatre screens and one instance of unRAID. (I can position the system in my attic in such a way that all screens are within easy reach (<10M). I plan passing through the 6x on-board SATA ports and additional SATA controller card to unraid, using the remaining 2x onboards for Xen drives with system images. I know this is ambitious but if I can crack this, I'll have consolidated 4x computers into a single system. The spindown support is important to me from a power-saving point of view and I thought I'd read in one of the longer virtualization thread that it was unknown whether or not it actually worked. Now I'm off to find the best value 8x SATA PCIe controller card that unRAID plays nice with.... Peter
October 2, 201312 yr Thanks for the comprehensive response. I'm looking at building a system based on Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Rev 3.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor I'll be installing 3x cheapish but Xen supported PCIe graphics cards with HDMI, an SATA PCIe controller card and Octopus DVB tuner card. The system will comprise 3x virtual 'htpcs' running MediaPortal driving my lounge, living room & home theatre screens and one instance of unRAID. (I can position the system in my attic in such a way that all screens are within easy reach (<10M). I plan passing through the 6x on-board SATA ports and additional SATA controller card to unraid, using the remaining 2x onboards for Xen drives with system images. I know this is ambitious but if I can crack this, I'll have consolidated 4x computers into a single system. The spindown support is important to me from a power-saving point of view and I thought I'd read in one of the longer virtualization thread that it was unknown whether or not it actually worked. Now I'm off to find the best value 8x SATA PCIe controller card that unRAID plays nice with.... Peter Not a good setup IMHO. #1 what exactly are you going to do about control of the HTPC VM? #2 DVB cards usually not supported in VMs, at least not an easy feat to setup and configure. I had similar idea before, but after an extensive research decided that if/when I get a tuner it would be a network tuner, not a card. #3 you might not be able to pass though onboard SATA ports as you need them for system drive and datastore drive(s) for VM server. and there are not many MB allow you to pass a single port... if money is an issue, I would try to build the main HTPC and the server first than add HTPC as needed to other locations. OR build out a decent server with and media server and budget for a roku box as streaming client for each location.
October 2, 201312 yr Thanks for the comprehensive response. I'm looking at building a system based on Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Rev 3.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor I'll be installing 3x cheapish but Xen supported PCIe graphics cards with HDMI, an SATA PCIe controller card and Octopus DVB tuner card. The system will comprise 3x virtual 'htpcs' running MediaPortal driving my lounge, living room & home theatre screens and one instance of unRAID. (I can position the system in my attic in such a way that all screens are within easy reach (<10M). I plan passing through the 6x on-board SATA ports and additional SATA controller card to unraid, using the remaining 2x onboards for Xen drives with system images. I know this is ambitious but if I can crack this, I'll have consolidated 4x computers into a single system. The spindown support is important to me from a power-saving point of view and I thought I'd read in one of the longer virtualization thread that it was unknown whether or not it actually worked. Now I'm off to find the best value 8x SATA PCIe controller card that unRAID plays nice with.... Peter Not a good setup IMHO. #1 what exactly are you going to do about control of the HTPC VM? #2 DVB cards usually not supported in VMs, at least not an easy feat to setup and configure. I had similar idea before, but after an extensive research decided that if/when I get a tuner it would be a network tuner, not a card. #3 you might not be able to pass though onboard SATA ports as you need them for system drive and datastore drive(s) for VM server. and there are not many MB allow you to pass a single port... if money is an issue, I would try to build the main HTPC and the server first than add HTPC as needed to other locations. OR build out a decent server with and media server and budget for a roku box as streaming client for each location. This
October 2, 201312 yr Don't know about DVB cards but I am passing Tuner cards to VMs in ESXi so far and they work well for me. No major problems with 3 ESXi servers and 1 Win7x64 VM for each ESXi server - they are headless servers/recorders. Playback is from client PCs. I am using the following tuners: Hauppauge: HVR-2250, HVR-1600 AverMedia: Duet nVidia: DualTV I've also passed USB cards through for the following USB tuners: HD-PVR and HVR-950Q. All to Win7x64 VMs in ESXi 5.0 but had some of this (but not all) setup with ESXi 4.1 as well. Edit - Further info on each VM: ESXi server 1 - Win7x64 VM: 1 AverMedia Duet, 1 HVR-2250, 1 HVR-1600, 1 HDHomerun (both tuners) - all OTA and QAM. This will need updating as I swear I had another 2 tuners setup for it for 9 total tuners in SageTV but I could be wrong. ESXi server2 - Win7x64 VM: 1 HVR-2250, 2 HVR-950Q, 1 USB 3.0 card for 2 HD-PVRs, 1 HDHomerun (both tuners) - OTA, QAM, Satellite (HDTV recordings). ESXi server3 - Win7x64 VM: 1 AverMedia Duet, 1 HVR-2250, 1 USB 3.0 card for 1 HD-PVR, 1 HDHomerun (both tuners), 1 nVidia DualTV - OTA, QAM, Satellite (HDTV and SDTV0.
October 2, 201312 yr Don't know about DVB cards but I am passing Tuner cards to VMs in ESXi so far and they work well for me. No major problems with 3 ESXi servers and 1 Win7x64 VM for each ESXi server - they are headless servers/recorders. Playback is from client PCs. I am using the following tuners: Hauppauge: HVR-2250, HVR-1600 AverMedia: Duet nVidia: DualTV I've also passed USB cards through for the following USB tuners: HD-PVR and HVR-950Q. All to Win7x64 VMs in ESXi 5.0 but had some of this (but not all) setup with ESXi 4.1 as well. nice to know, there are maybe some other reasons for the posts that say using tuners from VM were an issue. I am not sure now though. I remember doing my research about 6 month or so ago, when I planed my new build. I did not concentrate much on it as it was a "good to have " thing not a MUST. it could also be an issue with cableCard tuners not regular ones.
October 2, 201312 yr Author Not a good setup IMHO. #1 what exactly are you going to do about control of the HTPC VM? #2 DVB cards usually not supported in VMs, at least not an easy feat to setup and configure. I had similar idea before, but after an extensive research decided that if/when I get a tuner it would be a network tuner, not a card. #3 you might not be able to pass though onboard SATA ports as you need them for system drive and datastore drive(s) for VM server. and there are not many MB allow you to pass a single port... if money is an issue, I would try to build the main HTPC and the server first than add HTPC as needed to other locations. OR build out a decent server with and media server and budget for a roku box as streaming client for each location. Thanks for the input. Here's my thinking on your points; #1 Will be passing through on-board USB controllers to each HTPC VM and using remotes with keyboard/mouse backup. Can use a PCI usb card in a pinch if needed to add an extra controller. #2 I've found the Digital Devices Octopus system fairly straightforward (supports up to 8 add-on tuners but only occupies a single PCIe slot) I intend testing this on a Q6600 system I have that supports XenServer before biting the bullet on the full system. #3 This motherboard has 6x SATA ports on one controller and 2x on a different controller. I'll be passing through all 6 to unRAID and retaining the spare two for system/datastore. I'll certainly be doing more testing & research before embarking on this but where would the fun be if there was no challenge? At the very least, I'll have a nice new workstation if all else fails!!
October 2, 201312 yr #1 Will be passing through on-board USB controllers to each HTPC VM and using remotes with keyboard/mouse backup. Can use a PCI usb card in a pinch if needed to add an extra controller. this would limit you to running a single VM at a time. you can not pass though same hardware to more than one active VM at a time. #2 I've found the Digital Devices Octopus system fairly straightforward (supports up to 8 add-on tuners but only occupies a single PCIe slot) I intend testing this on a Q6600 system I have that supports XenServer before biting the bullet on the full system. nice to know, maybe I should look into this card myself. #3 This motherboard has 6x SATA ports on one controller and 2x on a different controller. I'll be passing through all 6 to unRAID and retaining the spare two for system/datastore. that make sense. not many board have this setup.
October 2, 201312 yr Author #1 Will be passing through on-board USB controllers to each HTPC VM and using remotes with keyboard/mouse backup. Can use a PCI usb card in a pinch if needed to add an extra controller. this would limit you to running a single VM at a time. you can not pass though same hardware to more than one active VM at a time. Understood but I'd be hoping to map my USB controllers as follows; Etron EJ168 chip USB 2.0/3.0 2x Ports -> HTPC #1 (as TV Server, this will also use external USB 3.0 drive for timeshift recordings) Southbridge USB 1.1/2.0 8x Ports -> HTPC #2 PCI USB Adapter 1.1/2.0 2x Ports -> HTPC #3 I figure that's how I get 3x distinct USB controllers to 3 VMs. In fact, this board specs state it has 2x Etron EJ168 chips so I may not need to use a PCI card at all.
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