Advice needed on hardware

[gleech]

Hi,

 

I'm new to Unraid. I'm hoping to get an advice on what hardware to select on my build.

 

I'm looking to run 3 VM running Windows 10, a little gaming on 3 VM's, I'm not doing any plex/transcoding. I will add probably 10tb of storage. A motherboard which have an IGPU so I dont have to setup another GPU for the Unraid display, I know it can be headless, but I prefer having a dedicated display for the Unraid.

 

I've read a few thread about xeon and ryzen. At first I'm leaning on ryzen but the issue about it makes me think twice.

 

Hopefully someone could give me some advice on choosing the right cpu and motherboard for my needs.

 

Thanks

[Jcloud]

55 minutes ago, gleech said:

I've read a few thread about xeon and ryzen. At first I'm leaning on ryzen but the issue about it makes me think twice.

Xeon is the more tested and stable route for sure, as for a mobo with the IOMMU groups you'll want to run that I don't know. I would recommend lurking around in the forums trying to filter-feed all the motherboard info you can while waiting for others to chime in on your post.  You mentioned Ryzen, I've been having good luck with my Threadripper setup, so far, I don't have a third graphics card to test for VM3, but given my IOMMU groups my particular board, I'd bet $5 on "it works." My system details are in the link of my sig, if you're curious about my hardware/setup. I'd recommend some sort of SSD(s) for your VM's as running it directly off the storage array gives you a sizable performance hit. 

 

I hope that helps. If you have any particular questions about my setup (which sums up my hardware exp with unRAID), for your research, feel free to ask me. 

[gleech]

47 minutes ago, Jcloud said:

Xeon is the more tested and stable route for sure, as for a mobo with the IOMMU groups you'll want to run that I don't know. I would recommend lurking around in the forums trying to filter-feed all the motherboard info you can while waiting for others to chime in on your post.  You mentioned Ryzen, I've been having good luck with my Threadripper setup, so far, I don't have a third graphics card to test for VM3, but given my IOMMU groups my particular board, I'd bet $5 on "it works." My system details are in the link of my sig, if you're curious about my hardware/setup. I'd recommend some sort of SSD(s) for your VM's as running it directly off the storage array gives you a sizable performance hit. 

 

I hope that helps. If you have any particular questions about my setup (which sums up my hardware exp with unRAID), for your research, feel free to ask me. 

 

Thanks Jcloud for your inputs. I checked your builds and it looks interesting. I must probably wait for you to install your 3rd GPU and run the 3rd VM before I buy my hardware.

 

How are you accessing your Unraid display?

[DZMM]

I have 3 W10 VMs running 24x7 with no problems on a X99 mobo, as well as a pfsense VM.  I don't have any fancy gaming GPUs, but I don't see why they wouldn't work in my setup.

[gleech]

35 minutes ago, DZMM said:

I have 3 W10 VMs running 24x7 with no problems on a X99 mobo, as well as a pfsense VM.  I don't have any fancy gaming GPUs, but I don't see why they wouldn't work in my setup.

 

Another build added to my list. Is your Xeon a retail chip or ES? There's a big price difference between the two in ebay.

[Jcloud]

51 minutes ago, gleech said:

How are you accessing your Unraid display?

Web browser for webui and PuTTY/ssh for command line (also been using the new terminal pop-up window from webui lately) either on a VM or another system on my LAN. Whatever is convenient at the moment . I don't use the unRAID GUI boot option, unless I'm trouble-shooting, or just need something quick in between reboots.  If things get super-fubar the VMs usally don't kick on and I have local console access any how. 

[DZMM]

32 minutes ago, gleech said:

 

Another build added to my list. Is your Xeon a retail chip or ES? There's a big price difference between the two in ebay.

 

Retail, although I got it off eBay which was a bit chancy but I picked a highly rated seller and it worked out well - think I got it for about $350 in late 2016.

 

I wouldn't recommend getting a ES chip personally

Edited March 23, 2018 by DZMM

[Jcloud]

37 minutes ago, DZMM said:

I wouldn't recommend getting a ES chip personally

 +1. ES == Engineering Sample, which screams to me prototype which I'm sure why it's cheaper. 

I, personally, would trust used/pulled Xeon chips from a good rep seller.

[CHBMB]

I'm using 2 engineering samples, it's a bit of a minefield and you really need to do a lot of research, for instance the ones I bought are identical to retail chips, but that's not the case with many of them, and features can be disabled or core speeds lower.

 

There's a good thread on it here.