I have a rack mount server with 2 dual-core AMD CPUs and 11 disks in the array. 8GB of ram. The CPUs don't support VM. And I really want to keep this server just doing the work of a file server. Currently it's doing SAB Sonarr Plex Deluge Couch etc..

 

I have an i5 HTPC machine with an SSD a couple 2TB drives and 32GB of RAM that I am no longer using since I bought the Xbox One and it got PLEX. I was thinking I would parse out the SAB Sonarr Plex Deluge Couch duties to the beefier i5 box as well as VMs..

 

Question is.. How do I connect the 2 boxes to work together? I am on a gigabit network, I also have 2 NIC cards in the main server.

The i5 doesn't need to run UnRAID => just install Windows, Linux, or whatever you'd like and set it up to run your CPU-intensive apps.  Then use your rack-mount UnRAID server as a NAS for the "applications box" to store its data on.

 

I noticed you posted a duplicate of this question in the "Compulsive Design" area.

 

No need for two identical questions - so I've deleted the other post.

 

If you'd rather this question be moved to that area just say so and I can do that.

 

For the second I think I would like to run Unraid as well. I like the stable nature of it and definitely don't want windows, I want to run dockers and VM etc.. I don't want or need linux

 

Assuming I want to use UnRaid, how do I share the filesystem with the beefier UnRaid system?

 

How do I connect the first as a NAS? I read a few months ago that you could/should connect with NFS Shares.. Any insight?

 

That's fine to delete from the other area, just thought I would get 2 different schools of thought, one from support forum and one from system designers.

Anyone have any other ideas?

I haven't tried it, but I'd assume you can "point" Dockers to your network shares on the other UnRAID box.

 

You can certainly do that with VM's.

 

I haven't tried it, but I'd assume you can "point" Dockers to your network shares on the other UnRAID box.

 

You can certainly do that with VM's.

I do this on pretty much of all my containers.  Only one of my servers actually runs containers, and I just use the samba shares to access the others.  You just have to mount the samba shares on the server that runs the containers.