... where's the best place start? I've built and populated (6x4TB ST4000VN000) my very first Unraid server at 5.0.5 abd now need to move on to bigger and better(?) things. But exactly how? I've no expisure at all to what Unraid 6 had the potential to offer  so how do i pick this knowledge up? I've acquired a supermicro 1156pga board and a xeon 3470 processor. Hope this will do as starters for the box but what about some virtualisation pointers? Do i need to know Linux inside out to use Unraid 6 and its addons?

 

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no you do not need to know Linux inside and out for running unraid 6.

it helps, but not needed  :-)

 

 

few key points here.

1. you can and will run v6 in same way you did v5 and before.

    the differences mostly are: 

  a. v6 is 64 bit. thus it can support more RAM. but it also needs new and updated    plug-ins and apps, if you use any.

 

  b. many plug-ins pre v6 will not work. so if you use a lot of plug-ins now you need to test each and everyone of them. I say build out the new hardware. get a hold of the v6 basic and test, test, test one plug-in at a time.

 

  c.  except for virtualization and new system ,as well as some cosmetic improvements for GUI , the concept is still the same.

 

2. make sure your hardware(MB and CPU) support virtualization extensions

like VT-d for Intel and IOMMU for AMD . you might not needed now but might in the future.

 

3. read up here on the forum on all and any things you might want to do with your new VM capable server.  what VM you might want to setup and use.

what functionality you need/want that you might get better with VM rather than unRaid plug-in.

 

example of such things are :

PLEX Server.  there are plug-in exist for v5 and there might be one for v6 already.

but you might want to move this into a dedicated VM and run a normal commercial version instead of adapted plug-in. you get full support from the orig. dev. and easy updates when they are out and not when plug-in dev have time to update it.

 

any torrent and such software. same reason as above.

 

before v6 virtualization was difficult as there were a lot of limitations on what unraid could do and how you could run unraid in VM if you could at all.

now that unraid is fully virtualization aware and  also can run as VM Host (Dom0) hyper-visor it is much easier.

 

Thanks for the reply but it highlights my problem. I don't understand virtualisation per-se. VM hosts, guests, Dom0 ? Any guide on here explains the terminology?

 

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look for early posts by schoolbusdriver and ironicbadger.

 

But first, I'd suggest generic, non-unraid sources

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT-d#Software-based_virtualization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen

http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Main_Page

and many more.

 

Some things to keep in mind while reading to put it all into context.  In our case main unraid, as loaded from the flash, counts as dom0 aka Host.  Anything else you hear about, be it ArchVM, various appliances, UbuntuVM etc, those are all instances of domU, a.k.a. guest.

 

Also pass-through, another hot topic here, is a way to make domu/guest have direct unfiltered control over a piece of hardware.  Around here we are mostly concerned with pass-through of video cards.  However there are generally only two use cases here for that function: running some form of HTPC software (like xbmc or plex) to push video from your server.  That is as opposed to running those to act strictly as media servers sending streams over the network to a client which then displays the video.  Another is running a windows VM (because of windows OS limitations better discussed later). 

 

There are other reasons to pass-through video and/or other hardware but those are the two main reasons.  They are also specific use cases that many people, myself included, have no need for right now.  What is more, you need very specific hardware to make that bit happen.  Generally most hardware will support all the other virtualization functions needed, but getting pci-pass-through/iommu/vt-d/amd-Vi is a bit more complicated.

Many thanks .... kind of makes it 'understandable', at least i'll be able to read other discussions with a bit more understanding, cheers for that!!

i was in your shoes not too long ago.  I sort of knew what virtualization was, and knew that I wanted to do it (to get a Windows VM running on the same hardware/box as my unRAID server), but didn't understand all the terms, and was lost on how to get started.

 

I decided the best way to move forward was to just try doing it.  I followed IronicBadger's ArchVM guide and setup my first VM using his great videos.  I suggest you do the same.  Even if you want to do something else in the future, it's a great introduction to the process, and helps you understand what it all means, and how it all works.  From there, I felt sort of comfortable with virtualization, even though I was still lost on some of the specifics, and ran into some problems, at least I knew how it was all supposed to fit together.  I found that process invaluable to getting me 'up to speed' with setting up and understand the parts and process of virtualization.

 

After that, you will probably feel comfortable enough to start asking about the stuff you're still confused or unsure about.

Thanks JC ... noted.

 

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No problem.  If you look for posts by my username, you'll see that I've asked a gillion questions, probably too many, but I feel that putting them online might get me an answer, and/or might just help someone else having the same issues in the future.

 

I'm still not where I want to be, and still have some outstanding issues, but I'm currently looking at a Windows 8 VM running on my unRAID box, displayed on my main TV, with all my input devices working, and my GPU passed thru, so I can use a decent video card to use/watch video on my main monitor.  A far cry from where I was a month ago (where you are now).

 

Have fun, and good luck.