First off thanks to everyone who's contributed to my various posts over the last month or so, whilst I've been preparing for my first unRAID build.  I'm now at the point where I don't think I can research anymore and I need to buy my final hardware parts.

 

I have a few questions, particularly around GPU passthrough that I'm hoping the community can help me with please.

 

Like many users I discovered unRAID through the '2 Gaming Rigs, 1 Tower' video from LinusTechTips (hope he gets a christmas card each year from LT!).  I was originally planning on building a dual E5-2670v1 system after seeing this elsewhere on the internet, and thinking this would work perfectly with unRAID and I bought my CPUs and 64GB of RAM on eBay.

 

After trouble finding a reasonably priced motherboard and concerns about buying and replacing in the future older components (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=51348.msg492412#msg492412), I decided to buy an E5-2683V3 chip which was going at a reasonable price on eBay.

 

 

I'm now planning on building the following system:

 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/ZmHk9W

 

Rationale:

 

- CPU E5-2683V3

going single CPU means I can use a 'normal' ATX motherboard so don't have to buy expensive motherboard & case; lower power consumption, LGA2011-3 means I have more upgrade/replacement options in the future, consumer motherboard easier to configure than server motherboard (I'm not a real techie, just a wannabe), can build a latest gen system e.g. DDR4 around it

 

- Mobo GA-X99P-SLI

seems to be the best mobo in terms of price and functionality that has 4x PCI x16 slots for up to 4 VMs in the future (16/8/8/8), USB 3.1 Type C at 32Gb/s not 10 Gb/s, M.2 at Up to 32Gb/s not 10Gb/s and Thunderbolt support (although not sure what would do with this right now!)

 

- 32GB Ram is enough for starters

 

- 512GB SM961 M.2 NVMe

I have a 250GB SSD in my current non-unRAID machine that in a normal W10 environment and with a windows 8 VM running via Hyper-V has around 80-100GB free on it.  I've gone bigger to try and future-proof myself a bit and because I'm not sure how much space I need for it to operate as a cache.  I'm not going to setup a cache pool as I want to try backing up my VMs and Appdata via CA first, save money and save a PCIe slot that would have to be used for the 2nd M.2 drive.

 

- HD6450

I had a number of these when I used to build simple HTPCs for my various rooms before I switched to using chromecasts and amazon fire sticks, and they worked perfectly for me.  I've picked this as I've read ATI cards can be passed through even if the primary card. 

 

Once I've got the HD6450 working, I intend to buy GT 710/720 cards for my other VMs.

 

 

The areas I'm not sure on:

 

1. the GPU.  X99 motherboards don't have onboard graphics - is it true I can passthrough the HD6450 even if it's the only GPU installed?If not, are there any alternatives to wasting a slot for unRAID that I'm not going to use?

 

2. M.2 - I feel this purchase is a bit extravagant and maybe I should just get a good quality larger SSD.  However, I remember when I bought my first SSD back in 2009 without knowing what the final result would be and now I'd never go back, and I think the M.2 will fall into this category.  Also, I'm building a system to support concurrent users via the VMs so I'm suspecting I need the extra 'oomph'.

 

3. Thunderbolt 3/USB Type C/Displayport - will I be able to use this with unraid?  Will I be able to passthrough the Type C connector with full support?

 

Can the community please shout out if they spot any issues or have any advice.  I still have the 2 E5-2670s, so if anyone thinks I should go down this route then please shout now or forever hold your peace!

 

 

 

 

Check out history on Gigabyte MB and unRAID.  At one time Gigabyte was known for doing something to every hard drive plugged in that rather innocently used a few sectors on the drive for something on the MB Bios (recovery or something I can't remember).  Turns out the use of those few sectors screws up parity.  I had to "undo" it years ago when I first went to unRaid and pulled the drives out of my windows machine.  My memory is a little hazy, I'll dig a little later on it, but check around.  I don't recall if it was all Gigabyte boards or most, and it probably was 5 years back so who knows what has changed.

Check out history on Gigabyte MB and unRAID.  At one time Gigabyte was known for doing something to every hard drive plugged in that rather innocently used a few sectors on the drive for something on the MB Bios (recovery or something I can't remember).  Turns out the use of those few sectors screws up parity.  I had to "undo" it years ago when I first went to unRaid and pulled the drives out of my windows machine.  My memory is a little hazy, I'll dig a little later on it, but check around.  I don't recall if it was all Gigabyte boards or most, and it probably was 5 years back so who knows what has changed.

 

Hmm that doesn't sound good.  I've always used gigabyte and Asus motherboards for the last 10 years or so in around a dozen machines, where I think I've only had to replace one faulty board.  I'll see if I can find anything on the forums.

 

Anybody had a bad experience with gigabyte boards?

Check out history on Gigabyte MB and unRAID.  At one time Gigabyte was known for doing something to every hard drive plugged in that rather innocently used a few sectors on the drive for something on the MB Bios (recovery or something I can't remember).  Turns out the use of those few sectors screws up parity.  I had to "undo" it years ago when I first went to unRaid and pulled the drives out of my windows machine.  My memory is a little hazy, I'll dig a little later on it, but check around.  I don't recall if it was all Gigabyte boards or most, and it probably was 5 years back so who knows what has changed.

 

Hmm that doesn't sound good.  I've always used gigabyte and Asus motherboards for the last 10 years or so in around a dozen machines, where I think I've only had to replace one faulty board.  I'll see if I can find anything on the forums.

 

 

Anybody had a bad experience with gigabyte boards?

 

Here is one article on it so you know what your digging for. 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5820.0

 

I have no idea if this is still relevant today so I hope I'm not unduly causing alarm.

HPA can probably be disabled on just about any Gigabyte mb nowadays (in the Bios - something like Bios Backup Settings, etc)

 

But even there, its a completely overblown "issue"  HPA doesn't hurt unRaid as long as its not on the parity drive(s).  If you have a gigabyte board and have HPA on one of the drives, your best solution is just leave the partition intact as when you remove it, the bios will attempt to put it on a drive again, but if one of the drives attached to the mb already has HPA on it, generally no further HPA partitions will be created.  And HPA on any attached additional controllers will never be created.  So that's the ideal place for your parity drive(s)

HPA can probably be disabled on just about any Gigabyte mb nowadays (in the Bios - something like Bios Backup Settings, etc)

 

But even there, its a completely overblown "issue"  HPA doesn't hurt unRaid as long as its not on the parity drive(s).  If you have a gigabyte board and have HPA on one of the drives, your best solution is just leave the partition intact as when you remove it, the bios will attempt to put it on a drive again, but if one of the drives attached to the mb already has HPA on it, generally no further HPA partitions will be created.  And HPA on any attached additional controllers will never be created.  So that's the ideal place for your parity drive(s)

 

That actually makes sense.  I never quite understood why it caused issues on unRaid, but on the parity drive it does make sense.

I just checked and the ga-x99p-sli doesn't have hpa - it's one of the reasons I want a consumer not server motherboard as they have fewer options and are easier for people like me to manage who don't over clock etc

If you want to pass a gpu and eye with some serious gaming on your system, you might consider per core performance. Sure, that 2683v3 is a beast, but not knowing it's actual performance per core, I doubt it tops that of a 2670.

 

While a lot of cores are good for a lot of VMs, games still only use a small amount of cores and so still a lot of applications do. I decided against the 2683v3 and went for dual 2670(2680 actualy as I got them for the price of 2670s) for my needs.

 

Case:

I do use a dual Socket board: ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16 which comes in SSI-EEB form factor. It fits nicely in a "fractal define xl 2". Which is also capable of going full size pcie length, has 8 bays for 3,5" drives and has 4 additional optical drive bays aswell. As the optical bays can be modded, and another drive bay with additional 4 drives should be mountable in the bottom fan spot, it is pretty easy to get lots of drives into this case. Another bonus are the included fans and the fancontroller.

The only downside is one missing drillhole in the case for the motherboard. This is easily fixed, the screw and counterpart can be premounted and "modded" with some tape on the bottom end so that there will be no noise if vibrations occur.

 

I am super happy with my config, you can barely even hear that the server is on and as I did not plug in the leds, it is quite stealthy overall. I passed through two gtx 770 4gb and my next step is finding a pcie USB controller that can be passed through.

 

Regarding the motherboard Isssue:

I used a gigabyte SOC Force board paired with a 4790k for 6-12 Months and never had parity errors. I did not have the mentioned options though.

If you want to pass a gpu and eye with some serious gaming on your system, you might consider per core performance. Sure, that 2683v3 is a beast, but not knowing it's actual performance per core, I doubt it tops that of a 2670.

 

While a lot of cores are good for a lot of VMs, games still only use a small amount of cores and so still a lot of applications do. I decided against the 2683v3 and went for dual 2670(2680 actually as I got them for the price of 2670s) for my needs.

 

I haven't played a game on my PC since playing Age of Empires II fairly seriously back in 2001-4 so I'm not worried about serious gaming performance.  Even so, I did check out the single core performance of the 2683 and it was comparable to the 2670 so I decided if other people were surviving for non-gaming tasks, so could I:

 

2670: 1610 passmark single thread

2680: 1659 passmark single thread

2683: 1694 passmark single thread

 

 

Case:

I do use a dual Socket board: ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16 which comes in SSI-EEB form factor. It fits nicely in a "fractal define xl 2".

 

Nice case, which was one I considered for my EEB build, including a Thermaltake Suppressor F51.  I've settled for a similar R5 as it's a 'sensible' ATX case and I don't need any flashing LEDs, and the Enthoo ATX was too pricey if I'm not doing a flashy watercooling/Simple SSD build.

 

Regarding the motherboard Isssue:

I used a gigabyte SOC Force board paired with a 4790k for 6-12 Months and never had parity errors. I did not have the mentioned options though.

Thanks for clearing up.

 

I think I'm good to go, apart from getting some comfort on passing through a GPU without a onboard adapter.  I've seen the posts on modifying GPU bios etc but I'm not keen on that as I'm trying to keep it simple.

guess I am the odd Fractal user with both a Define S and an XL 2, most go for the "R" Series.

 

I am surprised about the price of the e5 2683 v3, any chances the dealer has some more in stock, or do you know of a good place to get them - you are probably in the USA right?

 

Sounds like a nice build to me.

guess I am the odd Fractal user with both a Define S and an XL 2, most go for the "R" Series.

 

I am surprised about the price of the e5 2683 v3, any chances the dealer has some more in stock, or do you know of a good place to get them - you are probably in the USA right?

 

Sounds like a nice build to me.

 

I got it on eBay like the 2670s.  The seller had a high rating in the 000s and I made sure I got OEM not an ES version: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2683-V3-OEM-2-0Ghz-35MB-L3-14-Core-Max-Turbo-3-0Ghz-120W-CPU-/272254848452?hash=item3f63a74dc4:g:yi4AAOSwn8FXRsLx

Will I be ok passing through a HD6450 as the first GPU with no onboard?

Will I be ok passing through a HD6450 as the first GPU with no onboard?

 

I have been under the understanding that the host needs a graphics adapter, regardless of whether or not you will have a monitor plugged in and use it. Things have changed quickly in the past couple of years though, so my information may be out dated. I tried a quick search and did not come up with a definitive to help you out, sorry! My mobo has a built in crappy adapter, so my cards pass through with no problems.

from what I know you will have to keep the first gpu for unraid, hence why onboard gpus are a good thing to have.

from what I know you will have to keep the first gpu for unraid, hence why onboard gpus are a good thing to have.

 

I've read on the forum that ATI cards are capable of being passed through without an onboard gpu; I'm just trying to get some comfort that a 6450 will work.

 

I'm just going to go ahead and try as I've bought into the build now, and having 3 slots still available for VMs should be enough (or I can try messing around with x1/USB graphics cards for the VMs with minimal graphics requirements)