EDITED : ADDED LINKS 

 

Hello all,

 

So, after moving to Flexraid tRAID and hating it, I am coming back to Unraid. I loved Unraid but didn't really allow me to do much more than store data/DL stuff. I wanted to move away from Unraid to consolidate my data storing/DL and a small webserver (I know that Unraid can be a webserver but it is not recommended).

 

It was a bad move.

 

Anyways, I am back to stay and particularly excited about virtualization in v6. This is really something I was waiting for. At first I was considering going Esxi + Unraid, but now it will be Xen, and it will be awesome !

 

These parts have been chosen with virtualization in mind. Please let me know if you think something here will not work. My plan is the following:

 

dom0: Unraid

VM1 : Sab/Sickbeard/Transmission/Couchpotato/Plex Media Server (should Plex have it's own VM?)

VM2 : Webserver + Web caching server (web cache could/should be moved to another VM is webserver is exposed to internets ?)

 

Future VMs :

VM3: pfSense

VM4 : SteamOS for streaming my gaming rig to the living room projector

 

 

 

The parts for the server :

 

Case:

Fractal Design Node 804

http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-804

 

Motherboard :

GIGABYTE GA-Z87M-D3H

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128599

 

CPU:

Intel Core i5-4430 Haswell 3.0GHz

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116895

 

Memory:

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239291

 

SATA/SAS :

SYBA SY-PEX40039 PCI-Express 2.0 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124045

 

NIC :

Intel EXPI9301CT Desktop Adapter Gigabit CT 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106036

 

Drives :

1x 4TB Seagate Barracuda (Parity)

3x 2TB Seagate Barracuda (Data, already owned)

1x 128GB Crucial M4 (Cache + Datastore, already owned)

 

CPU Cooler + Fans :

Probably going to get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO because it is quiet and cheap. I have some Corsair SP120 fans lying around for the case.

 

Unraid license :

Already owned

 

I have a few questions :

I am thinking of a second NIC to pass it through to the Webserver VM. Is this a good idea ? I want that VM to be the only one really open to the Internet. I think this is possible but still am a n00b.

 

I am planning to eventually expand to 8 drives. This is why I am thinking of buying that sata controller. It is a PCI-E 2.0. How bad will the performance be on a PCI-E 3.0 port ? Should I wait a save up for a 3.0 controller ?

 

 

Thank you all for your valuable insight !

 

Tom

No one ?

 

What can I add to this thread to get a response. I feel like I did something incorrectly and I am being punished by the internets. 

 

Cheers,

Tom

ok, ok , we will be nice and civil here 

 

but seriously,

welcome back. 

 

 

now I don't think you will have much of an issues with performance  but we all have different expectations here.

I am pretty much indifferent to what's going on with my machine as long as my movies play nice, and they do.

 

as for passing the nic to webserver , I think your best option would be to setup pfsence first and pass the nic into it, than control access from the pfsence rather than from webserver.

 

my assumption is that you want to use pfSence as a router/firewall replacement. if not what will use use the pfsence for?

Regarding plex having its own VM, I don't think it's necessary. I'm running plex in an Ubuntu VM that also runs sab, couch, sick, mysql, and a basic webserver (for plexWatch). With under 2GB of ram it was running just fine.

Last weekend I moved the img file of that VM to an SSD and now it's flying when I remote desktop in (xrdp is awesome)

Thanks for the input guys !

 

Currently preclearing data drives and copying data to them tonight before preclearing and adding parity drive. Then, the fun begins with virtu !

 

Do you think it is a bad idea to go with consumer parts ? I looked into those and they seem to support vt-d all the way. A bit hard at the moment to shell out extra $$ for server grade parts but maybe I could wait and save up more if the pros outweight the cons.

 

Cheers !