So, I really haven't been paying attention to the development of UnRaid for a long long time. I am used to 5 but I will be starting from scratch this time. I was looking at the documentation for UnRaid 6 and there is a lot to sort through. I really just need a quick run down of the changes. I know there is a new file system. I have an idea of what docker is but haven't really looked into what that means in terms of functionality. Previously I could either have a dedicated machine for UnRaid or use a VM of it so that I can run it in my Windows machine and not need to have two machines but after a quick glance at the documentation it looks like I can do this natively now.

 

But I am used to the older 5 and under versions. I'm most concerned with the major changes that affect usability.

Which documentation did you look at? The wiki?

 

Take a look at the Limetech website itself. There is a lot of new and flashy content there promoting the new features.

I was looking at the user manual in PDF that was posted:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55205296/UnRAID%20Manual%206.pdf

 

I did read some of that I'm just not sure if from a practical standpoint, it can do what I think it can. I previously had a machine dedicated to UnRaid and another I used for everything else, including gaming with a nice GPU. I didn't like that. I know one solution would be to make a VM on a Windows machine but allocating resources from within Windows is not as ideal as through a hypervisor. I never really found a good way to do it. Maybe I didn't do enough research but I recall using VMWare ESXi wouldn't give me direct access to my video card or something. Does 6 give me a better option to run UnRaid and Windows simultaneously on the same machine? It sounds like it does but I'd like to get a confirmation from a user and maybe a less technical explanation, as for one, I'm kind of burnt out on having to deal with technical issues, and another I don't want to spend a lot of time researching, testing, and implement something new only to find out I misunderstood it's capabilities.

The virtual windows experience on unraid is highly hardware dependent. If your hardware doesn't want to play nice, you will have loads of problems. If it's KVM friendly gear, unraid makes it really easy to set up.

 

No, I'm not aware of an easy way to differentiate between the two. KVM and unraid is being tweaked as we speak to work with more gear, but the only way to know for sure is try it yourself, or try to find someone running the same CPU, motherboard, graphics card, etc and see how it went for them.

 

If you go into this with the attitude that it better work the way I want it to the first time or I'm going to be mad, then virtualization is probably not for you.

Sounds like you are primarily asking about VM features. Have you looked at the stickies in the KVM subforum? That subforum also has a lot of users posting their experiences so it might be worth browsing. I personally just run dockers on my headless server.

Thanks, I'll take a look at that forum. I think it will have what I need.