Thoughts on having Unraid as Only pc

[nightanole]

SO i have an i3 box for unraid, an i3 box+770gtx for win8/10, and an atom quad core box for running plex home theater.

 

I was thinking about trashing everything and just shoving it all only a xeon unraid6 setup and running hdmi and usb extenders everywhere.  Thoughts since i am the only user of these boxes?  What semi concerns me is the gpu idle wattage since the box is on 24/7.

 

Protips would be appreciated.

[RobJ]

Two concerns I can think of -

 

* Backup - I assume you have offsite backup, but it's always good to have backup capacity that's closer.  External drives are a possibility, if usually stored in another room.

 

* Single point of failure - if fire or stolen or major component failure, you are shut down completely.

[garycase]

Backup is an issue no matter how many PCs you have in your infrastructure ... it's not really any worse with one consolidated box vs. several more focused PCs.

 

Certainly when you virtualize everything in one box, that's a single point of failure; but hopefully that one box is a more "industrial strength" PC than your individual units ... i.e. server motherboard, ECC RAM, etc.

 

One other thing to consider:  What is the usage for each of your PCs.  If they're all on 24/7, then it doesn't really matter; but if, for example, you let your idle PC's sleep (in S3) or turn them off, then your net power usage may in fact go UP if you build a higher-end server box.    On the other hand, if your server is always on, then running a couple VMs in it doesn't add appreciably to the power utilization, except for the added power draw of a video card you might have to add (as you've noted).    That's likely still less than running your Windows PC => but it depends on how much that PC is on.

 

You also need to look at your topology => what kind of distances are involved in extending your HDMI, USB, etc. to the end points where you need displays/keyboards/remotes/etc.  Virtualization is a great idea for running multiple server instances, but it's not always so clear when the VMs are replacing desktop OSs.

 

 

[ysss]

And don't mess up setting up your unraid… I used an old preclear script on my new drive and turns out that only the latest preclear script should be used on Unraid v6. So I'm waiting for unraid to re-clear my new drive for the next 12 hours or so, and it ties up everything. No dockers/KVM can run, even if you set them not to use the array drives.

[danioj]

SO i have an i3 box for unraid, an i3 box+770gtx for win8/10, and an atom quad core box for running plex home theater.

 

I was thinking about trashing everything and just shoving it all only a xeon unraid6 setup and running hdmi and usb extenders everywhere.  Thoughts since i am the only user of these boxes?  What semi concerns me is the gpu idle wattage since the box is on 24/7.

 

Protips would be appreciated.

 

I was discussed the merits of something similar to what you mention here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=39880.0

 

I came up with a simple design and in my specific example I wanted to run up to 4VM appliances using USB3.0 to HDMI convertors and the HDMI over CAT6/e to multiple endpoints (TV's) around the home thus running EVERYTHING from one box which is collocated in the Study.

 

I wanted to use the convertors as I don't have enough PCI slots or space in the case for 4 GPU's (to pass through to each VM) nor do I want 4 GPU's in my box anyway. I tested it with one (which reminds me I should update that post I have just linked too) and the b/w throughput and lag was awful. So I returned the equipment for a refund.

 

My alternative (which I have done in all rooms now not just the living room) is to buy low end NUC's with 4GB memory and SSD's:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40461.0

 

as the endpoints (running Openelec) and run my media library from a "Dockerised" MariaDB and Headless Kodi setup which is updated even when the endpoints are off and loaded when they boot up.

 

The closest I am going to get to what I wanted to achieve is the gaming machine which is currently in the front room. I AM going to be able to virtualise this. Almost ALL the games run from this machine are run via Steam. So I am going to buy a VERY high end GFX card and put it in the main Unraid Server. Then I will create a SteamOS VM and get it running. Then I will buy the SteamLink:

 

http://store.steampowered.com/universe/link/

 

when it comes out which will stream the Unraid powered beast gaming VM (with the Highend GFX card passed through to it) to the HDTV over my Gigabit Network.

 

Thats the plan anyway!

[garycase]

That should work very well => and I think that's a better use of virtualization than trying to replace small, inexpensive, very low power, only on when you need them, OpenElec boxes 

 

I've got a bunch of Asus Revo NetTop's I bought a few years ago driving 3 of my TVs, and 2 higher-end HTPCs driving the two main ones.    I may consider virtualizing the always-on HTPC that has all the tuners in it, but that's a project for another day at this point.

 

Available slots can definitely be an issue if you start trying to virtualize too much "stuff" that all requires pass-through hardware.  [e.g. my HTPC has 4 dual-tuner cards ... so just to virtualize that configuration I'd need 5 PCIe slots for a video card plus those cards.]

 

[CHBMB]

That should work very well => and I think that's a better use of virtualization than trying to replace small, inexpensive, very low power, only on when you need them, OpenElec boxes 

 

I've got a bunch of Asus Revo NetTop's I bought a few years ago driving 3 of my TVs, and 2 higher-end HTPCs driving the two main ones.    I may consider virtualizing the always-on HTPC that has all the tuners in it, but that's a project for another day at this point.

 

Available slots can definitely be an issue if you start trying to virtualize too much "stuff" that all requires pass-through hardware.  [e.g. my HTPC has 4 dual-tuner cards ... so just to virtualize that configuration I'd need 5 PCIe slots for a video card plus those cards.]

 

What about getting two quad tuners?  Got to ask, how many people are living in your house that 8 tuners is a requirement?

 

What do you use for PVR Gary?

[garycase]

... What about getting two quad tuners?  Got to ask, how many people are living in your house that 8 tuners is a requirement?

 

Requirement?  What's that? 

 

There are two of us (wife & I) ... and we actually don't watch much TV.  But we do record a lot so we CAN watch it if we decide to [often don't watch a new series until near the end of the season & friends have mentioned what a great new series it is].    We record just about all prime time shows "just because".    While we never actually record 8 things at once, I DO set all recordings to start 2 min early and end 10 minutes late (and an hour late on weekends so any sports overrun doesn't result in missing the end).    So, for example, if we have 2 things set to record at once; and 2 more the next hour; those will use 4 tuners.  On rare occasions there might be 4 things recording at once ... so if there are any recordings before or after those we can easily get to 6 or 7 tuners in use.

 

But I guess the real reason I put 8 tuners in (4 dual tuner Hauppauge 2250's) is "just because" -- I have 4 available PCIe slots, so I simply filled them 

 

As for getting quad tuners ... I actually bought a Ceton 6-tuner cablecard tuner; but our provider (Time Warner) marks EVERYTHING (even network channels) as Copy Once ... so you can't watch recorded content on any other system unless you use extenders.    Wasn't interested in that restriction, so I sent it back & just added a couple more Hauppauge cards.

 

 

What do you use for PVR Gary?

 

Used Beyond TV for a lot of years, but a few years ago switched to Windows 7 Media Center, which works nicely (as long as you add Tuner Salad to eliminate the restriction on the # of tuners).    This also lets you use any other PC as an extender, by simply running WMC on it and pointing the "recording directory" to the shared folder on the main HTPC.

 

Recording storage is effectively unlimited -- if it starts to get full I just add more 

Currently have 12TB in the HTPC, which is backed up nightly to one of my UnRAID servers.

 

Just in case there's no recorded TV we want to watch, I've got over 4,000 movies on my media center to choose from as well 

 

And many might think that for 2 people I have a "small" overkill in my computing resources as well ... 3 UnRAID servers [Media, Aux, and Backup];  5 HTPC's (one main one with the tuners that runs 24/7;  4 others at each of our other TVs);  2 desktops (mine & wife's);  2 extra systems in our guest bedrooms [wouldn't want a guest to not have access to the internet or our recorded TV & movies  ]; and 3 laptops.

 

 

[CHBMB]

Chuffing Nora...

 

If you want to stop in a Windows environment I had Argus TV running in a Win7 VM on Unraid for a while, migrated to TVHeadEnd now, using a mediabuild of Unraid, can I interest you in that? Link in my sig

[garycase]

Chuffing Nora...

 

If you want to stop in a Windows environment I had Argus TV running in a Win7 VM on Unraid for a while, migrated to TVHeadEnd now, using a mediabuild of Unraid, can I interest you in that? Link in my sig

 

"... had Argus TV ..."  ==>  I note the past tense ... what are you using now?  And why did you switch to it?

 

[CHBMB]

Chuffing Nora...

 

If you want to stop in a Windows environment I had Argus TV running in a Win7 VM on Unraid for a while, migrated to TVHeadEnd now, using a mediabuild of Unraid, can I interest you in that? Link in my sig

 

"... had Argus TV ..."  ==>  I note the past tense ... what are you using now?  And why did you switch to it?

 

You want to trade that kidney for a new pair of eyes?! 

 

Migrated to TVHeadEnd running the MediaBuild of bzroot/bzimage and I personally use Saarg's docker but Mettbrot has put together a lovely plugin if you want to go that route.  I've found it very stable and it's great not to have to allocate any resources to a VM by running it native in Unraid.  Links are in my sig.

 

I'd recommend pulling a tuner out and trying it in your Unraid machine if possible.

[garycase]

For some reason I thought that TVHeadEnd was just to control the tuners ... missed that the overall MediaBuild gave you the "whole package." 

 

Are you going to update your downloads for v6.0 this week, after it's released (presumably today)?

 

I will probably give it a try ... either pull a tuner card out of the HTPC or just pick up another one.  May be a few months, as I'm going to build a couple more boxes this fall to "play" around with  [don't have enough computers  ] => mainly a nice high-end server to experiment with v6 and possibly update my desktop.  But if you have a fully configured v6 build that can be tried with just a download, I'll probably do that with one of my existing spare PCs.

 

 

[CHBMB]

For some reason I thought that TVHeadEnd was just to control the tuners ... missed that the overall MediaBuild gave you the "whole package." 

 

Are you going to update your downloads for v6.0 this week, after it's released (presumably today)?

 

I will probably give it a try ... either pull a tuner card out of the HTPC or just pick up another one.  May be a few months, as I'm going to build a couple more boxes this fall to "play" around with  [don't have enough computers  ] => mainly a nice high-end server to experiment with v6 and possibly update my desktop.  But if you have a fully configured v6 build that can be tried with just a download, I'll probably do that with one of my existing spare PCs.

 

I'll do it as soon as I can once V6 is released.  Certainly within 12 hours or so I hope.  Been working nights so may need to sleep at some point!

[garycase]

... I'll do it as soon as I can once V6 is released.  Certainly within 12 hours or so I hope.  Been working nights so may need to sleep at some point!

 

Certainly no rush.    Sleep is indeed a good thing 

[saarg]

... What about getting two quad tuners?  Got to ask, how many people are living in your house that 8 tuners is a requirement?

 

Requirement?  What's that? 

 

There are two of us (wife & I) ... and we actually don't watch much TV.  But we do record a lot so we CAN watch it if we decide to [often don't watch a new series until near the end of the season & friends have mentioned what a great new series it is].    We record just about all prime time shows "just because".    While we never actually record 8 things at once, I DO set all recordings to start 2 min early and end 10 minutes late (and an hour late on weekends so any sports overrun doesn't result in missing the end).    So, for example, if we have 2 things set to record at once; and 2 more the next hour; those will use 4 tuners.  On rare occasions there might be 4 things recording at once ... so if there are any recordings before or after those we can easily get to 6 or 7 tuners in use.

 

But I guess the real reason I put 8 tuners in (4 dual tuner Hauppauge 2250's) is "just because" -- I have 4 available PCIe slots, so I simply filled them 

 

As for getting quad tuners ... I actually bought a Ceton 6-tuner cablecard tuner; but our provider (Time Warner) marks EVERYTHING (even network channels) as Copy Once ... so you can't watch recorded content on any other system unless you use extenders.    Wasn't interested in that restriction, so I sent it back & just added a couple more Hauppauge cards.

 

 

What do you use for PVR Gary?

 

Used Beyond TV for a lot of years, but a few years ago switched to Windows 7 Media Center, which works nicely (as long as you add Tuner Salad to eliminate the restriction on the # of tuners).    This also lets you use any other PC as an extender, by simply running WMC on it and pointing the "recording directory" to the shared folder on the main HTPC.

 

Recording storage is effectively unlimited -- if it starts to get full I just add more 

Currently have 12TB in the HTPC, which is backed up nightly to one of my UnRAID servers.

 

Just in case there's no recorded TV we want to watch, I've got over 4,000 movies on my media center to choose from as well 

 

And many might think that for 2 people I have a "small" overkill in my computing resources as well ... 3 UnRAID servers [Media, Aux, and Backup];  5 HTPC's (one main one with the tuners that runs 24/7;  4 others at each of our other TVs);  2 desktops (mine & wife's);  2 extra systems in our guest bedrooms [wouldn't want a guest to not have access to the internet or our recorded TV & movies  ]; and 3 laptops.

 

You normally don't need that many tuners even though you record a lot. Often the channels are grouped together on the same frequency meaning you can record all of the channels using only one tuner 

Do you use cable, satellite or over the air signals?