Can a virtualized windows on unraid be my main pc?

[Andrewch]

Hi all,

 

Just hoping to get some opinions about using my unraid sever as my main pc.

 

Been using unraid for about 5 years and love it. My system has never missed a beat and I've had a lot of fun learning about and configuring it.

 

The time has come/past to upgrade my socket 775 main pc. This is the pc my wife and I use for work/study purposes. It needs to be reliable and also easy for my not so tech savvy wife.

 

I enjoy troubleshooting and tinkering but my wife doesn't.

 

My main question to everyone is whether you would recommend using unraid with virtualized windows or just build a dedicated pc?

 

Finally, I plan to build around a i7 6700 or i5 6600 - a significant jump from my current cpu and probably overkill for the workload I've described.

 

Cheers

[Frank1940]

Basically, the answer is yes... With the proviso that you have the right hardware.

 

Have you seen this page from LimeTech?

 

    https://lime-technology.com/hardware-requirements/

 

It will provide you with a lot of information.

[Andrewch]

Thanks for the reply.  Yes I've been through thathe info before.

 

I guess what I'll do is put it all together and if it becomes too difficult for the mrs I'll separate it into two systems.

 

If anyone has some first hand experience with a non tech partner using a vm I'd still like to hear.

[METDeath]

You will want some other machine, be it laptop/Chromebook to manage unRAID because if you have to take the array offline for any reason the VM will be stopped. Which knocks out your desktop.

[CHBMB]

METDeath, could the Unraid-GUI boot not be the answer to that issue, or even a mobile phone. 

 

Amazing what you can do with an Android phone with Chrome and JuiceSSH in my experience.

 

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Andrewch]

Good points METDeath and CHBMB. You will need something else for configuration purposes.

 

 

 

[DoeBoye]

I am in the process of doing the same thing with the added wrinkle of having 2 vms sharing one video card. This means only one vm can be on at any one time.

 

I'm thinking I might get a license for the ControlR app, as it seems to allow some fine tuned access control to the unraid Gui. My hope is to install it on her phone and just set it up so she can start and stop vms without my intervention....

 

I have yet to try it, but I figure that should make it easy for her to use it, and any unraid maintenance that needs to be done could be done with my phone, or an old laptop I have.

[Andrewch]

My plan at this stage is to only have one vm to replace my current pc. I've got a couple of serviceable laptop and around but it's time to upgrade the pc and the decision came down to whether to run vm or new pc.

 

I won't be losing anything if I try the vm first so that's what I've decided to do.

 

DoeBoye can you add a link to the ControlR app. I like the idea of that.

[phbigred]

What you are hoping to do is exactly what I did with my rig. Why run 2 boxes when you can do the same sort of thing with one. Haven't looked back! Best recommendation I can give you, back up often and run it on a SSD cache drive. I have a plex docker and mcebuddy in the VM scrubbing my recordings with multi streams and gpu transcoding. Best thing is my unraid for the most part is spun down thanks to drive spin down options in drive settings except for my SSD cache drive.

[CHBMB]

ControlR can be found in Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

 

[DoeBoye]

DoeBoye can you add a link to the ControlR app. I like the idea of that.

 

Also, here's the unraid support/discussion thread: https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=49620.0

[morti]

I use wake on Lan (Plugin) to let my gf Start and stop her vm.  I did use a vm on unraid as my Main rig for over half a year and now went for a serious build for multiple gaming/Workstation vms.

Performance Wise i am Happy and my gf never had anything Close to it. Did Not even cost much more then a single gaming pc.

 

I mostly manage unraid over my Phone but i do have a vga Screen and Input devices conected Just in case.

[Naldinho]

My GF uses a VM for he main computer and it works ok but I don't know if I'd do it again. The Windows 10 updates are annoying.

[Andrewch]

My GF uses a VM for he main computer and it works ok but I don't know if I'd do it again. The Windows 10 updates are annoying.

 

Thanks for the reply. Can you give me some detail about how the updates impact your system?

[morti]

I also do Not Unterstand how the updaten are different from a native System.

[Frank1940]

Interesting post about using Integrated Graphics Devices (i.e., on-board graphics) with VM's:

 

    http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=52533.0

 

Doesn't quite look like all of the bugs have been worked out at this point...

 

But for those folks who like to work on the bleeding edge, you have a new opportunity!   

[JonathanM]

No first hand knowledge, but from some posts in the VM section on this board, it would appear that some windows 10 updates have caused errors that had to be fixed by altering the allocated resources. The go to advice would seem to be to unallocate all but 1 CPU to the VM to allow the update to install correctly, similar to the directions to only allocate 1 cpu when installing the VM initially.

[Naldinho]

jonathanm is correct.

 

The anniversary update messed things up so much I ended up having to just do a clean install. The only way to get the update to work is to unassign all the cores and then assign only core zero. The update would also not work while passing through anything so I had to do it using VNC. Once the update is done you then go back an restore your settings.

 

For other updates some work but a decent number fail. The VM then seems to try to update again and it usually works on the second try -- either that or it just gives up and restores the previous version.

 

There is also the USB issue -- before I figured this out I waited hours with the VM making no progress. Unplugging all USB devices leads to the update proceeding. If you don't remove all USB devices including keyboard the update will just stall and not continue. Not a big deal but none of my physical Windows 10 computers have this issue.

[CHBMB]

To be fair the Anniversary Update borked my dual booting Windows/Ubuntu laptop on bare metal.  So I'm hardly surprised it caused some problems virtualised.

 

The above behaviour earned it a format, never to be installed again from me.....

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Andrewch]

Apologies for bumping this back up to the top but I thought Id finalise this post with my experience with my Win 10 Unraid VM.

 

Approximately 6 months ago I purchased an i7 2600 from ebay for a good price and some ram and an SSD. This ended being the cheapest way for me to upgrade my unraid server to something that might be able to serve both purposes - server/windows main computer.

 

After a fair bit of tinkering and lots of visits to this forum I got it up and running. And its been running great. The Mrs doesn't even know the difference and I really like having everything in one case.

 

The biggest issue I've had is that sometimes the VM does not boot up after a reboot. I found that this occurred quite a few times (with Windows updates) when I first got this up and running but I haven't experienced it recently. THe VM has been up for a good few months without it being stuck after reboot.That's not a problem for me because I never shut it down but that may not suit others.

 

I have found that my motherboard and case probably don't have enough usb ports available and its been a but it a balancing act to choose which ones to dedicate to the server an which ones for the VM. This issue has some obvious solutions and is no game changer.

 

Anyway, Ive managed to make the VM on unraid my main PC.

 

Cheers