New to unRaid, a few questions :)

[AlCaTrAzz]

hi all,

 

new to unRaid but have worked with ESXi and KVM before, i'm in the process of moving my main rig over to unRaid primarily for testing before deploying to my server.

 

Main Rig Specs:

i7-4770

24GB DDR3

AsRock extreme6 z77 (with dual gigabit LAN)

GeForce 770GTX

 

2x Samsung 850 PRO SSD

3x WD Green 2TB

1x 16GB Verbatum USB Stick

 

Rig is currently used to run Plex/Deluge/Minecraft server for the home network, as well as my main gaming/development rig. I'm hoping to move the "background" programs to Docker, giving it 2/8 threads and 8GB RAM, and then running a Win10 Pro VM as my main workstation

 

Couple of quick questions tho...

 

1. I currently use one of the SSD drives as my Windows drive, with programs etc installed, and the second SSD as my dev drive (which is backed up nightly to my server). If i set both of these drives to the unRaid cache, which as I understand it uses RAID1, I will only have 250GB of usable space? Is there a way to create the Win10 VM, store on cache, and then pass the other SSD directly to the VM? Are there any performance issues doing this?

 

2. the WD Greens are used primarily for local storage of files/media, as well as a local weekly snapshot of my dev drive. does unraid support snapshots, or is there a plugin/docker that I can use to automate this process? if so, am i then able to use this for my nightly backup to a different machine as well (via SMB)?

 

3. are there any noticeable performance issues running Win10 as a VM, in particular in regards to video card pass-through? I've tried this before with ESXi and it was a complete pain in the rear, the reason I am trying out unRaid is thanks to the linus tech tips videos (and hey, if he can do it, it cant be that hard right? )

 

4. is it possible within unRaid to pass through network controllers as well? so my Win10 VM has a dedicated gigabit LAN, and unraid/docker uses the other one?

 

5. with regards to my server, which down the road would be setup in a similar way but with alot more storage, how well does unRaid scale for larger storage deployments? If I was looking at say 10+ drives for the storage array. is there a suggested cache drive size to use, or any preference between SSD and mechanical drives?