Hi! I'm relatively new to unRAID but have previously played around with it on my main PC. Now I want to upgrade my current HTPC/NAS/TV server to use with unRAID instead of Windows 10 for better performance and stability.

 

Current hardware:

 

Processor:Intel E5200 2.50 GHz

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H(mATX)

RAM: 8GB DDR2

GPU: Geforce GT 610

HDD: 2x 3TB WD Green

SSD: INTEL 535 Series 120GB

Tv tuner 1:FireDTV-C

TV tuner 2: PCTV Triplestick DVB-T2

Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2(mATX)

PSU: Corsair VX450W

 

As I mentioned before I'm running Windows 10 on this system with Kodi as media center, StableBit DivePool for storage pooling, DvbLink to serve Tv channels to local machine and bedroom kodi client, Deluge torrent client, Sonarr and CouchPotato.

Everything is actually working okey on this old hardware but things tend to get a bit slow at times and also some crashing especially the TV software. Thats is why I want to upgrade the hardware and use almost the same software under unRAID. Hopefully this will make things snappier, more stable and also allow me to do maintenance without disturbing someone who is watching TV or movies on the main machine.

I want to have 2 WMs, one for Kodi OpenELEC and one for Windows 10 to run DvbLink and then the rest of the software I'll just run with docker.

Would like to keep things at as low cost as possible but I'm thinking I need to upgrade the motherboard, cpu and ram atleast. The gpu can be used to passthrough to the Kodi VM right? I see many unRAID users buying used supermicro motherboards with xeon cpus maybe this could be an option if it can fit in my current case?

 

Any advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

 

Okey, so I've been looking for some parts on ebay and found that the Supermicro X8SIL motherboard with an Xeon X3430 processor could be a cheap alternative. Maybe I'm totally off track but would this be enough with 4 cores for two VMs? Aiming at a 200$ budget for the upgrade but this might be too low for what I'm trying to do?

The Xeon X3430 processor is fairly old and doesn't have a lot of horsepower.  Even a modern i3 has almost twice the Passmarks of the X3430.  I assume by E5200 you meant the Pentium E5200?  That's an even lower performing processor.  If you want to run VMs you need to look at something a lot more modern, say a Core i5 or better or a Xeon E3.  I'd say a minimum of 6,000 Passmarks but that's just a guesstimate (more is better).  I also think you are low on RAM to run a Windows 10 VM.  It might work, but I'd recommend 16GB for unRAID, some Dockers, and two VMs (including W10).

Thank you for your reply! So the hardware I listed in the first post is my current hardware which I'm looking to upgrade so I understand this is nothing I would use for unRAID.

So I will be looking for som newer hardware and raising the budget. Still would 4 cores be enough for the two VMs and some dockers?

Yes, 4 cores is enough for 2 VMs and some dockers if the VMs are lightweight - you'll just want faster ones . 

Arlight then! Again thank you for your advice. So there's a guy on a swedish message board who's selling the following components for around $470:

 

MB: Supermicro X9SCM-F-B

CPU:  Intel Xeon E3-1230v2 3.2GHz

RAM: 2x KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G(total 32GB)

 

Surly this would be enough right? Also what do you think about the price? Maybe I could get it down to $400?

The Xeon E3-1230v2 is a much better choice.  $470 seems like a good price in the US (not great but good) - $400 would be better.  All prices are local though, so a good local comparison is best.