I have looked around and haven't really found an answer so I am hoping someone more knowledgeable can give me a second.

 

I just upgraded my UnRAID tower to an i5 and 16GB of RAM. I run about 5-6 dockers of which 3 are very active. One docker is Plex and I do a fair amount of transcoding. I specifically went to the i5 and the 16GB of RAM to deal with both the transcoding and unpacking activities my server does. That being said, I would like to do some virtualization beyond docker.

 

I previously followed one of the guides and got a Win7 xen VM setup and running great. Only issue was I didn't really know how to set up the vcpu's and what would be the best memory allocation. I don't really think i NEED a Win VM, but I'll keep my options open. What I would really like to do is spin up a linux distro of some sort, one to have an internal Apache server setup and two, just to play and better my linux skills a bit as they are very lacking as of late.

 

I am sure I can find a guide to help me with that, so that I am not worried about. What I would like to know is two things...so the tl;dr version:

 

1) What is a good setting for a linux distro VM in terms of VCPU and memory

2) More importantly...would like to know how to allocate the remainder of my VCPUs and mem to UnRAID so the docker's can use them

 

I just want to carve a little area out for either the linux or win vm but leave most of the grunt to Unraid and the dockers for my plex and other apps

 

Not 100% on what an i5 translates to in terms of VCPUs and can't seem to get a straight answer. Also, when i was testing my Win VM (when i had 8GB of RAM) even, though i set the cfg to max, the balance of what I did not allocate to the win VM was not totaling 8GB so not sure if I did it right.

 

Thanks for the time folks...still trying to hammer down this virtualization thing, as I am old school and am just getting into this. Thanks for the help..happy to elaborate if needed.

 

Tony

Tony,

 

You can look up your processor capabilities on the Intel ARK page (search google for Intel ARK).  This page will also tell you how many cores you have.  Another way to check your core count is to type "nproc" in command line.  It will return a numeric value of the # of cores you have.

 

As far as how many VCPUs and memory you should assign, it really depends on the apps you plan to use.  If you're just looking for a basic set of capabilities that aren't very CPU intensive assigning just 1 or 2 vCPUs should be fine.  As for memory, that is distro specific.  If it's a headless OS (meaning no GUI interface), you can probably get away with as little as 256MB or 512MB RAM assigned.  If it's got a GUI, chances are you'll need at least 1 if not 2GB of RAM, but again, very distro specific.

 

As for how you can allocate the remainder to unRAID, you don't need to worry about that.  Whatever isn't used by the VMs will be distributed to the rest of the operating system and the containers just fine.

 

Side note:  I highly encourage you to check out KVM instead of Xen though.  There is a pretty awesome plugin available from dmacias here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=35858.0

I have 4GB and 2 vcpus for XBMCubuntu and its working perfectly. Its in KVM but I dont think that matters.

 

It looks amazing and the sound is perfect

 

CPU0: Between 30 and 50%

CPU1: Between 30 and 50%

 

When running h264 at 49fps. (I have to look for a better quality movie to test )

 

I'm sure most linux distros would do fine on that amount.

 

 

just wanted to say thanks Jon...after that post, I decided to go KVM and got an unbuntu distro up and running...been fun since I haven't played with linux in AGES....(besides mucking things up here on unraid )

 

need to figure out a couple other things, but i think i am in good shape...thank!