**VIDEO GUIDE** How to passthrough and boot from an NVMe controller for bare metal performance in unRAID

[unrateable]

@gridrunner First of all thanks for your great videos. Learing a ton from them.

 

update 3 - 07.08.18 :  trashed the VM and wrote the PT in the syslinux, rebooted unraid. Installed a new Win 10 VM and partitioned the whole nvme for his installation. no virtio driver installed except netkvm to have internet. the nvme shows now full speed in CDM with 3.5/2.4. Good but odd. Will check into this some more at the weekend....

 

update 2 - 06.08.18  : my setup is 970 evo m2. on asus hyper-x x16 pcie nvme adapter card. as far as i can see in runs with full 4 lanes (lspci output). so there shouldnt be the issue ?!

 

#update 1 - 06.08.16 : 

via CLI command "

hdparm -Tt --direct /dev/nvme0n1

on unraid I aloso only get 

 

/dev/nvme0n1:
 Timing O_DIRECT cached reads:   4490 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2245.59 MB/sec
 Timing O_DIRECT disk reads: 7764 MB in  3.00 seconds = 2587.55 MB/sec

 

 

original post: 

 

I have a question; I got a fresh Win 10 install on passed through Samsung NVMe. below my XML

Its a 970 Evo and my ChrystalDiskMark is givin me this ( see end of the post)

. Nowhere near baremetal speeds (~3.5gb/2.4gb)  What am I doing wrong ? ?

...
  <vcpu placement='static'>4</vcpu>
  <cputune>
    <vcpupin vcpu='0' cpuset='4'/>
    <vcpupin vcpu='1' cpuset='10'/>
    <vcpupin vcpu='2' cpuset='5'/>
    <vcpupin vcpu='3' cpuset='11'/>
  </cputune>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-2.11'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/usr/share/qemu/ovmf-x64/OVMF_CODE-pure-efi.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/etc/libvirt/qemu/nvram/cef63062-509c-18d0-50df-08f644c2a901_VARS-pure-efi.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
...
    <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>
      <driver name='vfio'/>
      <source>
        <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
      </source>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x0'/>
    </hostdev>
    <memballoon model='virtio'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x06' function='0x0'/>
    </memballoon>
  </devices>
</domain>

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by unrateable

[shremi]

I just finished moving my windows VM to a new nvme drive it works great however when i alocated another space since the next thing i want is to install a OSX VM in the drive. However i cant format it using unassigned devices..... previously the disk was used in a couple of other machines.... any insight on this?

[steve1977]

Thanks for your help. A few questions where things stand with passing through NVMe:

 

1) The opening post says the video is now outdated. Any chance to see an updated one? Or a quick how-to write-up?

 

2) Specific to the task of cloning a vdisk to ths SSD: do I see in the video correctly that this is done on a "live vidsk" (i.e., you clone from a running vdisk to SSD?)

 

3) Anyone succeeded to pass through a MacOS? Without Clover? Any how-to?

[J89eu]

Hi Gridrunner, thanks for your guide, it's all working for me apart from I had to set the clover image as "VirtIO" rather than SATA as it wouldn't allow me to set any other option and save the VM, any ideas if this will cause any issues?

[steve1977]

On 8/28/2018 at 10:17 AM, steve1977 said:

Thanks for your help. A few questions where things stand with passing through NVMe:

 

1) The opening post says the video is now outdated. Any chance to see an updated one? Or a quick how-to write-up?

 

2) Specific to the task of cloning a vdisk to ths SSD: do I see in the video correctly that this is done on a "live vidsk" (i.e., you clone from a running vdisk to SSD?)

 

3) Anyone succeeded to pass through a MacOS? Without Clover? Any how-to?

 

Any thoughts on my questions above? Particularly on my first two Windows related questions. Would really love to run my Windows VM bare-metal on my NVME.

[Sinek]

Hello 

 

I followed exactly the explanation in the video. Unfortunately the clover boot manager is only a grey blank empty page.

I have installed Windows on bare metal nvme SSD and would like to start the same system inside a VM as well.

 

Could someone help to figure out what to do? Are there alternatives ways to boot from that installation?

 

I downloaded the clover boot loader image from the dropbox link in the description of the video.

 

If I should upload any information please let me know.

[alfredo_2020]

On 11/23/2018 at 5:43 PM, Sinek said:

Hello 

 

I followed exactly the explanation in the video. Unfortunately the clover boot manager is only a grey blank empty page.

I have installed Windows on bare metal nvme SSD and would like to start the same system inside a VM as well.

 

Could someone help to figure out what to do? Are there alternatives ways to boot from that installation?

 

I downloaded the clover boot loader image from the dropbox link in the description of the video.

 

If I should upload any information please let me know.

I have noticed that when doing OSX vm Installs, before i changed the clover bios display resolution. When the clover first boots, hold F2, to gointo the BIOS like settings, then try to change it to 1920x1080. Not sure if this will help.