Upgrading, need advise.

[jtech007]

I am looking to upgrade from my older, low power setup so I can run VM's in either ESXI or Xen (yet to be determined).

 

I am looking for suggestions on which motherboard I should get based on the following:

 

Will need to run unRaid, Windows 7, XBMC with passthrough for two PCIe video cards (one for windows one for XBMC) and also have room for two M1015's.

 

I have been looking at the Gigabyte 990fx line and cant decide if the UD3 will be enough slots for all of that as I will need to add a NIC as well. Maybe the UD5 or UD7 would be better/more flexible?

 

The other, more expensive route obviously is to go the Supermicro route but I am not sure which board would have enough PCIe slots to run 4-5 cards at once and not kill performance.

 

I would assume the AMD Fx chips with 8 cores would be enough to assign two cores to the Unraid and XBMC clients and leave 4 for the windows client. I am not sure what CPU Intel has that would allow that without spending a ton of $$$ on an 8 core offering.

 

Any help, suggestions or working builds you can post would be a big help!

 

[archedraft]

I would start looking here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31803

[jtech007]

I would start looking here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31803

 

I have read through that thread a few times. Out of the 23 setups there, only one mentions the 990fx chipset and two mention using Supermicro motherboards. And several note "working" setups but their sig's note newer equipment that may or may not work for what *I* need. Looking for more insight on the 990fx setups and any new Supermicro or other boards that are newer and might work with 4+ PCIe slots.

[jonp]

I'd also avoid Xen and skip yo KVM for pass through stuff.

[kingpin]

I don't know if the board will work for you,  but I just picked up a supermicro x8dtn+ for $140 (ebay) and (2) 5670 6 core chips ($275) for the pair.i just got unraid and up and working (had to disable the network boot options on the pci-x slot) and will be trying out the kvm/xen scenarios this week sometime. Looking to run unraid, plex, mac osx (blu ray rips,  and I like macs), and possibly pfsense (although I might do a separate 1u server for this so that the Internet isn't down while i have the server down for maintenance.

 

The only issue with the x8dtn board is that it is enhanced extended atx and you either need a case to handle it (supermicro) or are capable of extending your power supply wiring (which is what I am going to be doing) to get it out of the way.

[sgibbers17]

I am running a ESXi server with unRAID and windows 8 all running on a asrock c226 ws and Xeon 1245.  Those are going to cost you ~$500.  I have a LSI 9211 and 2 tv tuner cards passed to windows.  I don't believe you need to divvy out your cores to VMs I have all 8 cores assigned to both VMs.  I also remember reading that windows 7 has problems passing though GPUs on Xen.

[jtech007]

I'd also avoid Xen and skip yo KVM for pass through stuff.

 

I will have to check out KVM as I am not familiar with it. Sounds like fun though.

[jtech007]

I don't know if the board will work for you,  but I just picked up a supermicro x8dtn+ for $140 (ebay) and (2) 5670 6 core chips ($275) for the pair.i just got unraid and up and working (had to disable the network boot options on the pci-x slot) and will be trying out the kvm/xen scenarios this week sometime. Looking to run unraid, plex, mac osx (blu ray rips,  and I like macs), and possibly pfsense (although I might do a separate 1u server for this so that the Internet isn't down while i have the server down for maintenance.

 

The only issue with the x8dtn board is that it is enhanced extended atx and you either need a case to handle it (supermicro) or are capable of extending your power supply wiring (which is what I am going to be doing) to get it out of the way.

 

Please post your findings when you get something setup. That mobo and processor(s) might work in my case as well.

[jtech007]

I am running a ESXi server with unRAID and windows 8 all running on a asrock c226 ws and Xeon 1245.  Those are going to cost you ~$500.  I have a LSI 9211 and 2 tv tuner cards passed to windows.  I don't believe you need to divvy out your cores to VMs I have all 8 cores assigned to both VMs.  I also remember reading that windows 7 has problems passing though GPUs on Xen.

 

Good info, I will look at the asrock lineup as well.

[sgibbers17]

I am running a ESXi server with unRAID and windows 8 all running on a asrock c226 ws and Xeon 1245.  Those are going to cost you ~$500.  I have a LSI 9211 and 2 tv tuner cards passed to windows.  I don't believe you need to divvy out your cores to VMs I have all 8 cores assigned to both VMs.  I also remember reading that windows 7 has problems passing though GPUs on Xen.

 

Good info, I will look at the asrock lineup as well.

 

Also Asrock has been known to support VT-d when the newer desktop Intel chipsets don't.  My friend just got a z97 ASUS board that also supports it.  I believe the board he got is a z97-A.  Most desktop boards won't come out an say they support VT-d but if you can find it in the BIOS it should be supported.

[Howard Callender]

On 9/21/2014 at 2:21 PM, kingpin said:

I don't know if the board will work for you,  but I just picked up a supermicro x8dtn+ for $140 (ebay) and (2) 5670 6 core chips ($275) for the pair.i just got unraid and up and working (had to disable the network boot options on the pci-x slot) and will be trying out the kvm/xen scenarios this week sometime. Looking to run unraid, plex, mac osx (blu ray rips,  and I like macs), and possibly pfsense (although I might do a separate 1u server for this so that the Internet isn't down while i have the server down for maintenance.

 

The only issue with the x8dtn board is that it is enhanced extended atx and you either need a case to handle it (supermicro) or are capable of extending your power supply wiring (which is what I am going to be doing) to get it out of the way.

Hi kingpin. I justed picked up a supermicro with x8dtn+ and trying to install unraid. I get a 169.254.71.152. ip address. I did try a live CD with Ubuntu and everything worked find. 

 

I removed the drive controller card and basically got the board and USB and ran the installation.  I followed your trip to disable the PCI x and still nothing.

 

Thank you. Howard

[[email protected]]

On 9/21/2014 at 11:21 AM, kingpin said:

I don't know if the board will work for you,  but I just picked up a supermicro x8dtn+ for $140 (ebay) and (2) 5670 6 core chips ($275) for the pair.i just got unraid and up and working (had to disable the network boot options on the pci-x slot) and will be trying out the kvm/xen scenarios this week sometime. Looking to run unraid, plex, mac osx (blu ray rips,  and I like macs), and possibly pfsense (although I might do a separate 1u server for this so that the Internet isn't down while i have the server down for maintenance.

 

The only issue with the x8dtn board is that it is enhanced extended atx and you either need a case to handle it (supermicro) or are capable of extending your power supply wiring (which is what I am going to be doing) to get it out of the way.

Hello. I have a supermicro x8dtn+. I just picked up two 6 core CPUs, but I am not able to boot into Unraid when both CPUs are on the board. With one, it is working. Do you know if there are any settings in the bios that might be the cause for this?