So, I've got loads of questions, but I'd basically like my computer to act like it should without much for compromises. I've looked into this for a while, but would like to hear other people's opinions/answers to the issues/questions. I posted this on Reddit earlier, and will keep both of these posts updated with the answers I get.

 

Here are my specs as setup in Windows.

 

* CPU: Intel i7-6700

* Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX

* RAM: 16GB DDR4

* GPU: AMD RX 480

* Primary Storage: Kingston 256GB NVMe SSD

* Secondary Storage: WD Blue 1TB

* Scratch SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 256GB

 

1 ) The Power Button

I've currently got a Raspberry Pi I'm using as a "NAS" and quickly running out of space is my main concern for moving to a full NAS, but I was wondering if I could make that work as a Power Button. I've got no problem working in python and really like to turn my computer off at night, but I'm not about to go to a laptop to turn on my computer with the web interface. My idea is put the RPi inside my computer, power it via a loose SATA power cable with some adapter (that I can't seem to find), wire it up using the case's power cable, and send a startup and shutdown command over the network using some sort of API (again that I can't seem to find).

 

Solved

Use the Pi to SSH into the unRAID server and trigger a boot command.

 

2 ) OpenVPN

I'd like to use OpenVPN for several reasons and I know support should be pretty easy to add it as a shared network device (right?). What I'm worried about is port-forwarding. I'd like to have a couple ports forwarded using the VPN service and am doing that fine with my RaspberryPi without any special config on the client end, but how does unRAID work with ports? Does each VM get different IP addresses? How would I go about port forwarding say a Web Server from a Plugin, a game server in Windows, and/or a port from another IP address on the local network?

 

3 ) USB Hot-Plugging

This one should be rather straight forward. Can I just plug in a USB device and have it appear in Windows? I do NOT have a spare PCI-e slot for a USB controller, but I do have a USB hub. I don't have any reason to use USB devices directly in unRAID. Is this forum post the best we've got?

 

Solved

Looks like that is the best we've got.

 

4 ) NVMe SSD

Will I get any performance decreases using this SSD? I'd ideally like to have this PCI pass-through like the GPU, but then will I be able to boot? If not, I'm worried about drivers because it seems to have issues with Linux.

 

Solved

The beta 6.2.0 has added support for NMVe as part of an array. Performance may still be less, but PCI-e pass-through should work.

 

5 ) Hyper Threading

he says "I generally recommend assigning the Hyper-Threaded cores and the physical cores to the same assignment." Maybe I have a completely whack understanding of Hyper Threading, but the way I think, if you use assign hyper threaded cores to different tasks you could minimize downtime. I'd like to use all my cores in Windows, but I'm okay with going with 6 threads and 3 cores if necessary.

 

6 ) Installing unRAID on an SSD

Can I install unRAID on my scratch SSD? I'd obviously have it partitioned to have the rest as a cache or something else. I don't like the idea of having a USB device just sticking out of my computer at all times. Is this forum post up to date and correct?

 

7 ) Other OS's

I'd like to use other OS's like mac OS and Ubuntu. What are my options? Currently I use VMware Workstation on my computer, but would a VM inside a VM be too much? If I were to use another VM in unRAID, how would I view the OS? Would I need to use my iGPU? Would I have to VNC into the OS? How would I go about switching USB devices assuming I can manage to Hot-Plug USB devices? Also, is there anything wrong with this guide for installing mac OS on unRAID?

 

8 ) The Transition

So, I'm likely going to have to reinstall Windows, I know, but is there any chance I don't have to? Even if I use the NMVe SSD passthrough? If I do end up having to reinstall, what can I do to transfer my license over?

 

9 ) Latency

Is there any added latency with using a VM in unRAID? I understand there shouldn't be with the GPU, but what about the USB inputs?

 

Solved

Nothing noticable if any.

 

10 ) Sleep Mode

Does this at all act quirky in a VM? I only ask because of the Bonus Question.

 

11 ) Expansion

Is it easy to just pop another drive in and expand the array? I don't plan on running any extra redundancy like RAID 1 or anything if that makes it easier.

 

Bonus) AMD Cursor Corruption

This one has absolutely nothing to do with unRAID, but if you know a fix for AMD's Cursor Corruption, I will love you forever and ever! It just switches the cursor to be that randomly. It supposedly happens because of multiple monitors. I've tried changing the shadows on my mouse, but nothing fixes it besides sleep mode.

 

Conclusion

Thanks SO MUCH in advance for all the help you can provide. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. These are roughly ordered by their importance to me.

Since I'm a total noob on unRAID I can only help you on this one: Hyperthreading.

 

Hyperthreading works this way (easy explanation): one core is able to take two tasks at the same time, thus, appearing to the OS as if it were two cores.

 

A little more complex explanation: Hyperthreading enables a core to distribute its resources through up to two tasks at the same time.

 

An example?: You have a one core hyperthreaded machine. You instruct it to make an integer calculation and a floating point calculation. The core has one integer unit and one floating point unit. It can process those two tasks at the same time.

 

An example of bottleneck?: You have a one core hyperthreaded machine. You instruct it to make it two integer calculations. The core has one integer unit (and the floating point unit can't process integer calculations, for the sake of the example). The calculations go on queue.

 

That's probably why Linus tipped on "using the hyperthreaded cores and physical cores to the same assignment", as to be sure the same VM will use the same physical core for both requests a physical hyperthreaded core can take. Otherwise your instruction will jump from one core to the other, thus bottlenecking the internal bus without need (integer will go to core0 and floating will go to core 3--> the hyperthreaded 2nd core)

 

I hope this explanation on hyperthreading is useful. AMD handles things sort of this way too, but with a twist, but that's for another topic.

Seijaku - welcome to the unRAID community, and great post!  Nice explanation!

 

6 ) Installing unRAID on an SSD

Can I install unRAID on my scratch SSD? I'd obviously have it partitioned to have the rest as a cache or something else. I don't like the idea of having a USB device just sticking out of my computer at all times. Is this forum post up to date and correct?

unRAID requires a USB flash drive for licensing, and uses it to boot from and to store the 'persistence', since it loads and runs the OS in RAM.  There are ways to avoid using it for everything, and that very old thread mentions one or 2 of them, but I find it hard to justify.  This is anecdotal, but I have been using the same cheap slow PNY drive for almost 10 years, without any issues.  Most don't have any problems.  And with the new automatic replacement policy, and your own flash backup policy(!), there isn't really a problem.

 

Sticking out can be a problem, with kids and pets, but just get one of the dongle types, look just like the wireless dongles for wireless mice.  They don't stick out at all.  Some users install the flash drive internally, which is OK and certainly safe, but I like having access to the drive, to pull it and check it on another machine when I have the unRAID server shut down.

 

11 ) Expansion

Is it easy to just pop another drive in and expand the array? I don't plan on running any extra redundancy like RAID 1 or anything if that makes it easier.

Relatively easy, easier than most.  Drive must be cleared first, so it doesn't invalidate parity.  We unRAID'ers recommend Preclearing drives first, as it tests drives for early failure, then writes zeroes to the entire drive, preparing it for addition to the array.