My current unRAID build is as follows:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T

MB: Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB (890GX chipset, doh!)

RAM: 8GB DDR3

 

I have a Biostar TA970 that I could use instead of the 890GX, so I know that supports IOMMU but I can't find if I can get GPU pass through with my CPU (apparently that's an issue?).

 

I'm posting this first because I would have to pull apart three machines total to test this (one machine has the TA970, one is the unRAID server itself, and another for it's GPU as apparently NVidia's are difficult to pass through).

 

Your CPU supports virtualisation fine so if your other motherboard supports IOMMU then you'll be good to go, I use my Phenom II x3 720 with Xenserver for this purpose.

Sweet, that's what I was thinking.

 

Now I just need to decide on how to best get XBMC onto the VM and have the on board IR and figure out how to make the VM pull a different IP address that I can access over the network.

 

My understanding is that OpenELEC (preferred) doesn't work with Xen at this time.

If you decide to use Linux for this purpose then there is a autoscript thingy I saw in the Xen sub-forum for setting up VM installs.  Personally I use Xenserver as the host and then run unRAID as a guest, not supported by limetech but the controls to sort out VMs is far better.

If you decide to use Linux for this purpose then there is a autoscript thingy I saw in the Xen sub-forum for setting up VM installs.  Personally I use Xenserver as the host and then run unRAID as a guest, not supported by limetech but the controls to sort out VMs is far better.

 

My biggest issue with using unRAID as one of the guests is that I have 17 drives in my machine... so that's a bit of data lost if something happens and glitches on data write somewhere.

If you're using a SAS HBA card then if you pass that controller directly through to the VM then nothing can go wrong... Certainly that is what I do and all is good.  But anyway, we digress from your original question.

 

There are some good lists about how to create VMs using LIBVIRT online or at the main Xen website.

If you're using a SAS HBA card then if you pass that controller directly through to the VM then nothing can go wrong... Certainly that is what I do and all is good.  But anyway, we digress from your original question.

 

There are some good lists about how to create VMs using LIBVIRT online or at the main Xen website.

 

Continuing the sem-OT trend,

I have two controller cards, and the six ports on board are all being used, so having unRAID as a guest is something I'd rather avoid.

 

Back on topic:

Can I take an existing NTFS drive that has Win 7 x64 on it and just point Xen at the HDD?

No not really.  Generally the virtual hard drive is either a partitioned LVM or image file, this is the only format that linux based hypervisors know.  Essentially, you have the HDD attached to the host and then a LVM partition is created for local storage or image file for NFS storage which the windows VM is installed to.

I thought immou was only on the newer fx line, i knew turban had amd v but not vi, thats sweet Will give this a spin with the asrock fat pro 990fx and 1055t

Well, xl dmesg is telling me AMD-Vi:  Error initialization

 

I've enabled IOMMU in my motherboard, and set the virtualization support to on, Biostar TA970 (one of the early red/black ones). So that will be my project this week methinks...

 

I've got a 990FX... but the CPU socket is broke (retaining clip) and the mfg wouldn't repair it in the last month of the warranty (physical damage not under warranty... wtf?) or even send me a replacement part. Not that I can even find a replacement AM3+ socket... I've been thinking about getting a regular AM3 replacement socket and seeing if I can make that work.