unRAID rigs with gaming capability

[Rivvern]

I've been inspired by LinusTechTips videos about unRAID with multiple gaming PCs.

With 1 wife and 3 kids i see this a cost effective and dynamic solution to multiple household needs. Instead of buying a computer for each person i can buy one, pretty powerful, to be used in more ways.

*Storage (NAS)

*Smart house (lights, car heater etc.)

*Media management. (movies, home movies, photos, PLEX streaming etc.)

*VMs. Kids can have their own powerful gaming VM and wife can have her own video edition VM. Etc.

 

The biggest problem is that you all need to be in the vicinity of the computer. Most likely the same room.

 

I've been looking at a Asus Maximus VIII Hero or Asus Maximus VIII Extreme both with 8 SATA slots. Is gaming gear the way to go for this project?

This will be pretty expensive rig so before i thow my money at it I want to ask you guys if anyone here built an similar rig or planning on doing so.

I know it is possible but is it practical for every day use?

 

Please comment about anything on the subject or post your hardware specs of planned or, built rigs.

 

Regards

Daniel

[klips]

While you are spinning off gaming VM, the underlying hardware should, imo, be server or workstation grade. For one, workstation/server grade hardware are more robust. Also, there are many recommendation on use of ECC memory, which is not found on gaming gears.

 

 

 

 

[abs0lut.zer0]

I've been inspired by LinusTechTips videos about unRAID with multiple gaming PCs.

With 1 wife and 3 kids i see this a cost effective and dynamic solution to multiple household needs. Instead of buying a computer for each person i can buy one, pretty powerful, to be used in more ways.

*Storage (NAS)

*Smart house (lights, car heater etc.)

*Media management. (movies, home movies, photos, PLEX streaming etc.)

*VMs. Kids can have their own powerful gaming VM and wife can have her own video edition VM. Etc.

 

The biggest problem is that you all need to be in the vicinity of the computer. Most likely the same room.

 

I've been looking at a Asus Maximus VIII Hero or Asus Maximus VIII Extreme both with 8 SATA slots. Is gaming gear the way to go for this project?

This will be pretty expensive rig so before i thow my money at it I want to ask you guys if anyone here built an similar rig or planning on doing so.

I know it is possible but is it practical for every day use?

 

Please comment about anything on the subject or post your hardware specs of planned or, built rigs.

 

Regards

Daniel

 

be very interested if you could carry on with updates along your way to building the machine you want, i think would be a very interesting read if it's not to much bother or waste of time for you.

 

thanks

[Jcloud]

I've been inspired by LinusTechTips videos about unRAID with multiple gaming PCs.

.....

 

I'll admit that was one of the hooks that sold me on unRAID; one of these days I'm going to setup two 'mini-VMs' and give it a shot. For now I'm content with crossfire GPUs. Don't hate me, I'm single and lonely -- but no kids. 

My specs are linked in my footer. Watch out for Marvell sata controllers when shopping for MLB, that burned me - details in my link.

 

That's my two-cents worth of electrons.

Also, populating those M.2 slots on your MLB choices would be killer for cache pool, but I don't know what your budget is like either.

 

[landS]

$600 E5-1650V3 22nm 6/12 3.8 GHz 140W Haswell-EP/4th Gen

$335 SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRA-F-O (with IPMI)

$140 MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (16 GB DDR4-2133 ECC Registered)

$140 MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (16 GB DDR4-2133 ECC Registered)

$1,200 Total

 

Is 12 3.8 ghz hreads enough?

3 for unraid, plugins, dockers, plex

3 for wife.

2 for each kid....

Has 4 x16 and 2x4 physical slots and many sata ports

 

You can swap the CPU for 24 threads at 2.8 GHz if not.

[Rivvern]

Thank you for helping with my project.

 

$600 E5-1650V3 22nm 6/12 3.8 GHz 140W Haswell-EP/4th Gen

$335 SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRA-F-O (with IPMI)

$140 MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (16 GB DDR4-2133 ECC Registered)

$140 MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (16 GB DDR4-2133 ECC Registered)

$1,200 Total

 

The truth is that I've always been a gaming-pc guy and I know pretty much what i need and want.

I'm a bit scared going into server hardware as it is uncharted territory for me. Regular gaming parts can always be used as an ordinary pc but if this project fails I will be sitting here with server hardware...

 

Still. Maybe server hardware is the way to go for my project? Would be nice to hear from someone who already run a similar gaming setup.

 

be very interested if you could carry on with updates along your way to building the machine you want, i think would be a very interesting read if it's not to much bother or waste of time for you.

 

thanks

 

Sure. If there is interest I can create a build log! But first i need to gather intel, acquire funds, and the most difficult part, persuade my wife.