Which Cores/Thread to pin for unraid/docker/gaming VM/WorkVM

[takkkkkkk]

So, I have 2x Xeon E5-2667 v2, which came with 8 core each. I'm thinking about doing a CPU pinning to get the max performance, but I'm abit lost as to which one I should be pinning...

here are my current usage

Docker:

1. Plex

2. Couchpotato

3. Sonarr

4. Deluge

5. sabnzbdvpn

6. Krusader

7. OpenVPN

 

VM

1. Gaming VM

2. Work VM (domain joined | Need As Many Cores as possible)

3. Other various VMs x2 (do not need much of processing power)

 

I'm assuming I need to pin Gaming VM to the CPU that has GPU PCIe connected, and I guess I want to limit to that CPU (lets say this is CPU1)... How about others? Should I pin everything to CPU2? Or is there a better mix?

[DZMM]

I'm not sure about the gaming VM bit, but what you said makes sense to me.

 

As to the dockers, I have a slightly lower powered CPU than you but I have all my dockers (I run similar ones and a few more than you - HA, lidarr, crashplan etc) bar Plex and MineOS all are pinned to 3 cores and they work fine so I think you can do the same.  My layout is (14 cores):

 

- 0 - unRAID

- 1 - unRAID/VM emulator pins/Plex

- 2-4 VM 3/Plex

- 5-7 Dockers, VM4, Plex

- 8-10 VM 1/ Plex

- 11-13 VM 2/Plex

 

VM4 (W10) is low priority and the last one to be turned on and I only use this if the kids are gaming, so it shares cores with the dockers.  I haven't fully isolated cores for my VMs, but since I did this on VM 1 and VM 3 (main Windows 10 VMs) I haven't had any latency or stuttering with audio that I've really noticed.

 

For Plex, it's down to your personal preference.  For me, media takes priority over everything else so plex has access to 13 of my 14 cores.  It rarely needs that many, but I'd rather it had access if it did.