Hi, I haven't used unraid for several years now but now I'm looking to combine things into 1 pc. I want plex, sonarr, couch potato, etc. Plus a vm for gaming, plus a vm for normal desktop. Or I could do just 1 vm for gaming+desktop together I suppose. 

 

I have z170a gaming m7 motherboard, i5 6600k cpu, 16gb ddr4 3000 ram. 

 

Should I use what I have or get something else like xeon? 

 

My primary goal is to have this thing "just work " once I get it all set up. Money is not much of an issue, but it's nice to save if my current hardware is sufficient.

Edited June 16, 20179 yr by tribble222

The Core i5 6600k supports IOMMU/VT-d, runs 8,000 Passmarks, and has 4 cores, non-hyper-threaded.  If it were me, I'd want to give unRAID at least 2 cores to run basic NAS functions plus a bunch of Dockers.  That would only leave 2 cores for VMs which isn't ideal.  A hyper-threaded CPU or one with more cores gives you a lot more flexibility for fine tuning the configuration and running VMs.  Make sure your motherboard also supports IOMMU/VT-d, by the way.

 

Do you want to support Plex transcoding and if so how many streams?  That matters with CPU selection.

16 minutes ago, tdallen said:

Do you want to support Plex transcoding and if so how many streams?  That matters with CPU selection.

 

Thanks for the response. 

 

I'd want to support max 2 streams of plex transcoding. 

 

My motherboard claims to support it (vtd) but I read online e some people are having issues... Makes me think to just buy known reliable hardware and save the headache. Ideally I don't want to futz with this thing.

 

Is there a recent build list faq for what I want out of this machine? My searches have only found some stuff around a year+ old. 

Edited June 16, 20179 yr by tribble222

Actually, maybe I'll just get another 16gb ram and an i7 7700k and call it a day. Looks like the mobo is OK for vt-d afterall

The rule of thumb for Plex transcoding is 2,000 Passmarks per 1080p stream.  So I'd look to set aside at least 5,000 Passmarks for unRAID, several Dockers, and 2 streams.  Personally, I'd build a new box if you really want to combine all that into one.  That said, would you keep the 6600k as your gaming box and build an unRAID NAS for the other stuff?  Or are you still thinking one large box for everything?

 

Editorial comment and purely personal opinion: gaming VMs with hardware passthrough on unRAID do work, and can work very well, but I'm not sure I'd say that they "just work".  I would characterize VMs with hardware passthrough as more "enthusiast" technology than "mainstream" - I'm sure it will mature over time but for now tinkering is required.

The 7700k would be a big jump up - over 12,000 Passmarks and 8 vCPUs to work with since it has hyper-threading.  Since you'd be moving from a Skylake CPU to a Kaby Lake CPU it would be a good idea to confirm the 7700k is supported and update the BIOS before you upgrade.

Yeah, continuing my reading I'm coming to the conclusion that gaming vm + Nas isn't really a hands off experience. 

 

I guess I'll go for building a low powered unraid w/docks and keep my gaming rig separate.  Maybe when my gaming components get old I can cycle it into my Nas and buy new gaming stuff

Or setup the 6600k as your NAS and get a shiny new gaming rig .

 

There are some remarkably good deals in low end chips now, for instance the Pentium G4620 costs under $100 but it's now hyper-threaded and gets 5391 Passmarks which outperforms most Haswell Core i3's.

Edited June 16, 20179 yr by tdallen