Is 32gb of RAM really necessary?

[gaulderson]

New here so please forgive me if this isn't the right place to post this. 

 

Anyways, I plan on running Plex + a few dockers and a Windows 10 VM for gaming.

I see a lot of unRaid builds with 32gb of RAM and I was wondering if it was worth almost double the price of 16gb.

How much RAM are people here running and do you wish you had more?

edit: as a side note it looks like 2x8gb ECC RAM isn't too popular and 16gb sticks seem to be more common.

[BRiT]

No. 128GB or more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tdallen]

UnRAID and a few Dockers will run fine in 8GB, though 16GB is a common build spec for new machines for NAS+Docker just to future proof.  Decide how much RAM you want to give each VM and then add in the virtualization overhead (I believe 1-2GB per VM is common).  

[DoeBoye]

16GB should be fine.

 

More is always nicer though, and if the budget can swing it, I'd probably go 32GB.... The thing with UnRaid 6+ is that they keep adding fun new functionality to it, and the more you use it, the more things you might want to try . If you buy 16GB now, and realize a year from now that maybe you want a second VM, or dedicate more ram to a specific Docker, or they come out with some new functionality that needs more, buying later is always a bit of a hassle (Compatibility concerns etc)...

[tdallen]

I'd go with 32GB.  I wouldn't build a gaming machine with less than 8GB of RAM, so for gaming on unRAID I'd be allocating at least 8+2 = 10GB of RAM. While 6GB would generally be enough for unRAID and a few Dockers, I firmly believe in overkill .

[gaulderson]

Is it a pain to add RAM later down the line? I assume it's just as simple as finding the same model although I'm not sure how hard that might be. 

[burtjr]

Normally it's not a pain, but some boards are extremely picky. it is usually a good practice to buy matching sets. If you don't need it now I would recommend buying what you need and upgrade later.

[JorgeB]

I had 32GB on may main server, but needed some for another so borrowed 16GB, still has enough for 2 Windows VMs plus a couple of dockers.

[1812]

My main server has 72GB of ram.... it could be considered too much except that I run a  vm for video editing using 32GB of ram, plex transcoding to ram, 1-2 other vm's running app that are not available via docker, and a few other things as well... My backup server has 40GB of ram, runs a couple vm's and a backup plex incase the first is overloaded or goes down.

 

Most people don't need this.