Unraid for office use, what conventions should I take

[jang430]

Hi.  I'm considering Unraid for office use.  Processor, memory aren't specified yet.  So it's still open to suggestions.  

 

Since I've been using Unraid for the last 3 to 4 years, I've only used it at home, and not in a production environment where it requires fast, good performance.  But on my home Unraid setup, I do use Docker/ Docker apps.  I have a Linux VM set up, and using remote to access the machine.  

 

I'd like to know if I'm gonna use it for office, and need speed to access the VMs, what choices do I make in configuring Unraid?  Some questions below:

 

 

Scenario:  File server, with 8 VMs available for remote.  VM functions: 1 Quickbooks Server (So need fast throughput), 7 Virtual desktops to access Quickbooks.  File server, among other things, will serve as a backup location for Quickbooks Server (1 of the VMs)

 

1. How do I group the drives?  1 set (maybe 2 or 3 drives) as a share to function as file server storage?

2. How do I give VMs good performance (disk wise)?  Assign a hdd per VM?  Wouldn't this be too wasteful?  How else can we get performance, and yet, cost effective solution?

3. What file system to choose for best performance?  btrfs, xfs, etc?

4. The machine has to be connected to Active Directory hosted in Azure.  I have a Firewall on premise, and this box will also be on premise.  How do I go about having this box connected to Active Directory (in Azure) so that users within the office that authenticate in Active Directory in Azure can access their VMs, etc. on premise?  Any special instructions needed for this to work?

 

Please share possible other things to consider.

 

Things at my disposal:  Have some xeon servers, so not an issue, have HDDs, so not an issue.  Have 10GB NICs, so not an issue as well.  Have switches, though 10/100 only, but have 2 1000 ports (GBIC).  Internal users will mostly connect to QB via wired lan, or wireless.  Virtual desktops are for external users who use VPN, to remotely access virtual desktops (this gives better performance in QB).

 

[SSD]

If you want to use unRAID for a production server to take advantage of its virtualization features, I would get a hardware RAID card, and setup a RAID5, RAID6, or whatever you need hardware RAID, and add it as disk1 in unRAID. No parity. Read and write access will be very fast, and the RAID will provide redundancy at least equivalent to unRAID. You should also have SSD cache drive(s) sufficient for all your virtualization. Server and horespower is at your discretion.

 

I would not run unRAID parity protected array for mission critical. RAID has a higher level of integrity checking. It is seemingly impossible for it to be out of sync without it literally shutting down and pushing you to restore backups. unRAID would allow an imperfect rebuild to occur, because it is better to restore most even if you can't restore all. But for a production system that is typically not what you want. It HAS to be right. You don't want to be guessing about having corruption. You'd rather know and deal with it. Neither is better or worse, just two different use cases.

 

My $0.02.

[jang430]

I didn't know that you can use RAID card together with Unraid.  Will give this a thought.  My question is, I thought a lot of people going to software RAID now, such as Freenas, Unraid, as hardware RAID also has it's disadvantages, such as hardware failure.  

 

How do I utilize SSD Cache drive for my VMs?  Their whole Virtual PC is running on cache?  Only storage is on array (Parity protected)?  e.g. in Windows C: is on cache drive, not parity protected, ssd, and d: is on array (parity protected)?

 

 

[ashman70]

I really would not recommend using unRAID in a business environment, for your purposes I would recommend VMWare Esxi they have a free version (with some limitations) or a paid version that costs $560 USD you can check it out here http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/cat/categoryID.66192900?src=eBIZ_StoreHome_Featured_Essentials_US

 

 

[jang430]

So far, both you and bjp999 advised staying off for office environments. Any challengers?

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, jang430 said:

So far, both you and bjp999 advised staying off for office environments. Any challengers?
 

Nope. I'll pile on and say as a NAS only, and for nearline/online backup, unraid is fine for business. For VM's, not even close. I would never trust an unraid server to stay business grade stable through updates and upgrades hosting windows VM's. Period. Wasting the hourly wages of a full office for even a day or two over a year would pay for much of a Windows server license.

 

Perhaps if you were using linux based VM guests, my answer would be a little different. Maybe.

 

For your outlined uses, I would recommend staying with the evil empire and running a terminal server for your windows "VM's". That way Active Directory is supported, and you can get business grade tech support on any issues.

 

AD support on unraid is spotty at best.

[gubbgnutten]

19 minutes ago, NAStyBox said:

Most people don't realize that a 100mb switch is essentially 50mb. (50/50).

Honestly never heard that before. Could you elaborate?

[Squid]

You're confusing MB/s (megabytes) with Mb/s megabits.

 

A 100Mb/s switch (fast ethernet) is capable of ~ 12.5MB/s

 

A gig switch is capable of ~110MB/s max

 

But point being the same, anything but gigbit switches in this day and age is pointless unless you're running dumb terminals (AS/400 eg) in a factory environment

Edited May 4, 2017 by Squid

[gubbgnutten]

19 minutes ago, NAStyBox said:

 

It's actually not so simple, but it's definitely not transferring 100mb of data per second. 12.5mb per second is the max real data transfer speed on a 100mb network.

Why? Overhead. Folks often think of ethernet as this flawless digital connection, but there are all sorts of factors that affect speed. This might help shed some more light on it.

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/Ethernet
 

Yikes, and here I was expecting some confusion regarding either hubs vs switches or full duplex vs half duplex. Should have seen it coming, struggled hard to not make a comment on the use of "mb" as a unit... 

 

Well, at least we have established that the reason most people don't realize it is because it isn't the case.

 

14 minutes ago, Squid said:

You're confusing MB/s (megabytes) with mb/s megabits.

Pretty please with sugar on top use M for mega in both cases!

 

Granted, it is unlikely that we'll ever see a case where millibits is the intended unit, but how can we expect everyone to use B/b properly if the M is not cased consistently?

[Squid]

13 minutes ago, gubbgnutten said:

Pretty please with sugar on top use M for mega in both cases!

 

Granted, it is unlikely that we'll ever see a case where millibits is the intended unit, but how can we expect everyone to use B/b properly if the M is not cased consistently?

Since you were so kind as to ask nicely, I fixed my typo...

[jang430]

Thanks JonathanM.

 

9 hours ago, NAStyBox said:

1. What is the business? Accounting?
2. What are the client VM's used for, specifically(tasks), and are they all secondary workstations? All Quickbooks?
3. What kind of data will be stored on the NAS, and what volume?
4. How often would the remote team be accessing those VMs? Do you even need them? You may just need a beefier VPN server to get better throughput to the physical machines on the other end of the pipe. 
5. What's your budget for implementation?

 

 

1. Quickbooks Server is for access during office hours, at all times, by local users, and road warriors tunneling in via VPN, to use Virtual Desktops mentioned here.  I believe Quickbooks server require high bandwidth to have good performance.

2. Client VMs are used as Workstations, for CRM access, Quickbooks access.  Probably 4 VMs active at any given time.

3. NAS will only store Quickbooks backups, VM documents (not very important)  Shouldn't be more than 2 TB Max for all VMs

4. VPN will go through firewall.  Firewall will allow the road warriors to access VM on Unraid.  Hope that explanation is clear.

5. I will mostly be using old servers.  Have HP Proliant DL 360p Gen 8s,with Dual Socket.  Xeon E5.

 

To join Unraid to Active Directory, are there any plugins?  Or how do you go about this?

 

Though, after receiving several responses saying it's not suitable, I am inclined not to do it anymore.  Though hearing your reasons, I learn why it's not suitable.

 

 

 

[SSD]

Ethernet is a contention networking protocol. Unlike something like token ring (IBM's invention in the 80s or 90s), where the token goes around the network and you can only send when you have it, Ethernet lets anyone blab away at any time. If a message gets destroyed by colliding into someone else's message, there is a retry mechanism. So the more talkers there are, the more retries and the worse it performs. Token ring is the opposite. With fewer people that is delay waiting for the token. But the more packed the network becomes, the more orderly the usage, no retries, and the more efficient it becomes.

[Squid]

18 minutes ago, jang430 said:

To join Unraid to Active Directory, are there any plugins?

The minute you consider joining unRaid to an AD domain, is the minute you should stop using unRaid.  While it apparently does work, very, very few users here do it (so there's basically no support), and of the success stories, they've all had a ton of issues getting it to work.  But it does work apparently...

[jang430]

3 minutes ago, Squid said:

The minute you consider joining unRaid to an AD domain, is the minute you should stop using unRaid.  While it apparently does work, very, very few users here do it (so there's basically no support), and of the success stories, they've all had a ton of issues getting it to work.  But it does work apparently...

 

Thanks Squid, guess that's the end of this thread   

 

Thanks for all your response.