Hey folks,

 

I'm new to UnRaid, heard about it a few months ago in my search to replace my slow Synology DS412+ with something that could run Plex better. After browsing this forum for while my plans have kinda snowballed and I've just received a couple of dirt cheap Xeon E5-2670s . My plan now includes replacing my current gaming rig as well as the Synology with an UnRaid rig that can do it all with room for a second future workstation for the wife in the future. Although I won't be ordering most of this stuff for another few months I would be most appreciative if anybody could point out any obvious problems with my shopping list...

 

Case: Lian Li PC-D600 (Fitted with 2x Lian Li Hot Swap Cages)

PSU: Corsair HX1000i

MB: ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS

CPU: Dual E5-2670s (Already Own)

CPU Coolers: Noctua NH-U12DX i4 x2

RAM: 8x Crucial CT5676850 (64GB Total)

GPU: MSI GTX970

Cache Drives: 2x Samsung 1TB 850 EVO

Parity Drives: 2x WD RED 4TB (Hoping that dual parity will be standard when I come to purchase a license)

Data Drives: 2x WD RED 4TB plus 4x WD RED 3TB (Salvaged from my Synology)

USB Drive: Sandisk Cruzer 16GB

 

Also, if anybody could answer a couple of queries...

 

CPU Pinning: I plan on running dockers for Crashplan, NZBget, Couch Potato, Sonarr as well as Plex and possibly others. Obviously if Plex is going to do a lot of transcoding it will need an appropriate number of cores pinned, but for the rest of them, do they need exclusive core pinning? If left unpinned do they just all share whatever cores are free? Is it possible to assign say 8 cores to more than one docker and have them share them?

 

USB Passthrough: I'm assuming that I can just pass through the USB3.0 controller on the MB to my VM, plug a USB 3 Hub in, and this will mean that all USB 3 ports will act as though they are attached to my VM, leaving the USB2 ports for UnRaid?

 

Linked to the above, when I come to add a second GPU and VM, I'm assuming I can just add another PCIe USB 3 card, pass it through to the second VM and then use a hub with this to provide the second VM with standard USB connectivity?

 

mmm, think that about covers it for now. Looking forward to getting more involved in this community

Not sure why you have spec'd so much RAM, I would think 32GB should be fine for what you want to do.

 

UnRaid 6.2 is still in beta now, but I think by the time is out of beta it should be able to do all you want to do with respect to hardware passthrough to VM's etc.

 

I don't believe you assign CPU cores to dockers, but you do to VM's and whilst there is some info out there about CPU pinning, I have not had issues with my windows 10 VM which I use for gaming and pass through a GTX 960 without issue, the vm has two cores and 4GB of ram and can play CSGO and Battlefront on high settings with ease and no lag, it also runs off an SSD.

CPU Pinning: I plan on running dockers for Crashplan, NZBget, Couch Potato, Sonarr as well as Plex and possibly others. Obviously if Plex is going to do a lot of transcoding it will need an appropriate number of cores pinned, but for the rest of them, do they need exclusive core pinning? If left unpinned do they just all share whatever cores are free? Is it possible to assign say 8 cores to more than one docker and have them share them?

As far as CPU pinning is concerned for docker apps, this is what I do:

 

I leave Plex unpinned to give it access to as many cores as it may require at any point in time.

 

Everything else I tend to pin them to one specfic core to outright limit their performance.  IE: I really don't care if NZBGet take 5 minutes to unpack a rar if it's unpinned, or 6 minutes to unpack it if I pin it to one specific core.  My attitude is that by pinning it to one core it will interfere less with Plex's requirements

 

And yes, you can pin multiple apps to the same core and they will all share the same core.

 

This all gets a little more complicated once you have a VM running for gaming, but you just have to decide where your priorities on performance lie.

 

And to get even more fine control over pinning and docker apps, there are also options available to limit docker apps to a certain cpu percentage utilization.

Squid, where do you configure CPU pinning for dockers? I was unaware of this feature.

ashman: The 64GB was purely for future proofing. I don't know what else I may want to do with it in future so it seemed like a good choice.

 

Squid: You seem to confirm my understanding of how it all works. I was thinking of pinning 4-8 cores to the Gaming VM, 4-8 cores to Plex and then having all my other dockers pinned to the same 4-8 cores so that they could share them.

 

When I say "Gaming VM" I really mean a replacement for my current PC which is used for Gaming, Photoshop, Lightroom, Video editing, Music recording & Office.

Squid, where do you configure CPU pinning for dockers? I was unaware of this feature.

extra parameters on the Add / Edit container screen

 

--cpuset-cpus=core#

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36257.0

 

For the complete list of everything you can do (limit memory usage, limit cpu usage, etc)

 

https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/run/

ashman: The 64GB was purely for future proofing. I don't know what else I may want to do with it in future so it seemed like a good choice.

 

Squid: You seem to confirm my understanding of how it all works. I was thinking of pinning 4-8 cores to the Gaming VM, 4-8 cores to Plex and then having all my other dockers pinned to the same 4-8 cores so that they could share them.

 

When I say "Gaming VM" I really mean a replacement for my current PC which is used for Gaming, Photoshop, Lightroom, Video editing, Music recording & Office.

There is no hard and fast rule on what or how to pin.  It's all dependent upon what you run, and what performance you want out of everything (and under what circumstances).  Its a decision that while the members here can guide you, only you can make the determination of what works for you and your needs.

Thanks Squid, I am trying to find these settings in 6.2beta 21 have they been omitted for the beta? I have to other UnRaid servers but I am not running dockers on them.

Thanks Squid, I am trying to find these settings in 6.2beta 21 have they been omitted for the beta? I have to other UnRaid servers but I am not running dockers on them.

Have to click advanced view in the top right

 

Got it thanks.