So I got tired of having a computer tower right next to my equipment rack and since I removed my Sony BDP-CX7000ES from it, decided to merge my pfSense box, and the Windows 7 machine into a single box... so why not use my spare unRAID license?

 

I decided to go with a working CPU/MB combo for unRAID with VMs as I already have this setup working flawlessly on my primary unRAID installation.

 

I didn't want a super deep case, and I didn't want a flap on the front, which brought me to the Norco RPC-430.

 

Equipment list:

CPU: AMD FX 6300 (3.5GHz Hexacore - 4.1GHz Turbo)

MB: Biostar TA970 (6 x SATA 6Gb/s)

RAM: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (a little overkill on speed, but I have it laying around, so why not use it?)

PSU: Thermaltake TR2 Bronze 600W

Case: Norco RPC-430

GPU: XFX AMD 5450 1GB

TV Tuner: Ceton InfiniTV4

pfSense NIC: Intel PT1000 Dual Gigabit NIC

Three Seagate NAS HDD ST3000VN000 3TB for unRAID storage (6TB usable, primary purpose is backup certain folders on Server 1)

Cache: One OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" 120GB SSD (fits the drive trays, and again, laying around)

One 1TB HDD for pass through directly to Windows VM for recording TV)

Lite-On BD-ROM & a DVD-RW for MakeMKV Docker for pesky discs that my BD-RW in my main PC doesn't read well... plus a lot of DVDs to rip still... so might as well have three drives going for a while.

 

 

VM list:

Windows 7 or 8 with Media Center for Ceton InfiniTV 4 & Kodi (7 is preferred, however, if I can't get USB controller pass through working, I will settle for a Windows 8.1 install).

pfSense

 

Docker list:

TFTP Server for PXE booting

MakeMKV

Build Issues:

 

unRAID as hyper visor:

 

MakeMKV docker doesn't see my BD-ROM, just the DVD-RW - Haven't looked into this

 

Well... that didn't take long. Currently Windows 7 doesn't have working HDMI audio, but a test OpenELEC VM did. - FIXED driver issue

 

Couldn't get the Ceton to pass into Windows 7, so scrapped it and tried....

 

ESXi as hyper visor:

 

Got Windows loaded up, passed the Ceton and an IR controller, but can't get Media Center to pass the DCA to allow the Ceton to work on GPU... probably because I can't remove the VM monitor from the guest.

 

Next up:

 

Windows 8 Pro with Hyper-V

 

This has Media Center, and will let me run pfSense and unRAID as guests. Should allow me to pass the DCA test AND get me my pfSense and unRAID box into a single machine... my alternate idea is take my current pfSense hardware (AM1 5350 quad core w/Intel PRO1000 NIC) and make it an unRAID/pfSense box for power savings.

Reserved for pictures

Can't wait to see.

what are you going to use as your hypervisor? ESXi? KVM?

 

 

You can do Kodi as a docker image now, no reason to make it into a VM.

 

 

You'll have to virtualize 2 things:

 

UnRAID

PFsense

 

I've yet to find a firewall/router/security combo with a NAS/SAN built in anywhere on the net. You either get one or the other.

 

what are you going to use as your hypervisor? ESXi? KVM?

 

 

You can do Kodi as a docker image now, no reason to make it into a VM.

 

 

You'll have to virtualize 2 things:

 

UnRAID

PFsense

 

I've yet to find a firewall/router/security combo with a NAS/SAN built in anywhere on the net. You either get one or the other.

 

 

I'm using unRAID, because I have a spare license sitting around, I know the interface, and the tricks I'll have to do to get GPU pass through working (same CPU, MB, and GPU).

 

Or if Windows proves to be a headache and unreliable in the VM. I will make Win7x64 the host with two virtualbox instances (one for pfSense, one for unRAID).

How you say... "womp womp"

 

Couldn't get the Ceton working inside a VM, mostly likely going to Win 8 Pro and using Hyper-V to run unRAID and pfSense in a VM.

Hyper V won't pass through USB for the unRAID license AIUI.

Hyper V won't pass through USB for the unRAID license AIUI.

 

Well, that's good to know. Guess my "server/media center upgrade" just became a "media center upgrade".

There may be a workaround, there was a thread about it here, but ISTR it didn't work. 

How you say... "womp womp"

 

Couldn't get the Ceton working inside a VM, mostly likely going to Win 8 Pro and using Hyper-V to run unRAID and pfSense in a VM.

 

Well that's disappointing.  Looks like I'll have to scrap my WMC VM, which will adjust the parts list I'm compiling for the server upgrade.

How you say... "womp womp"

 

Couldn't get the Ceton working inside a VM, mostly likely going to Win 8 Pro and using Hyper-V to run unRAID and pfSense in a VM.

 

Well that's disappointing.  Looks like I'll have to scrap my WMC VM, which will adjust the parts list I'm compiling for the server upgrade.

 

Well, some people have gotten it working using this little script thing... it should be noted that I tried using Win x64 not x86 so that could be part of my issue.

Interesting....guess I'll plan my build to include hardware for the WMC VM, but it's clear that it'll take a bit of effort to get it to work right.  Thanks for the link, I've saved off the file in case their site ever goes bye bye.

So thread revival... Since I got rid of cable TV I decided to restart this.

 

Still had issue with device passthrough to Windows (SATA/RAID controller card), until I added QEMU arguments to the bottom of my XML... and then it started. So I will at some point try using the QEMU stuff to see if I can get the Ceton working, just for curiosity's sake.

 

Currently it's running a MakeMKV docker, an LT OpenELEC image, pfSense, and a Windows VM until I clean off the two 3 TB drives I was using to rip my movies.

 

Also found that trying to make a SAMBA transfer from my Windows VM to a physical machine would kill the network stack (but the VMs kept running, both pfSense and OE). So for now I baby step it to the unRAID host share and then onto the machine I use for encoding.