Win 10 Bare Metal / VM Data Files

[SonWon]

unRAID newbie alert!  I am building a new PC and planning to use unRAID, mostly for the easy to manage VM aspect.  I also want to run my OSes in VMs for security.  My vision has always been running multiple OSes on one PC and hot keying between the VMs.  I see now that the hardware and software has finally caught up with my vision.

 

Spaceinvader One has a video where he sets up Windows 10 to boot from bare metal or in a VM.  I thought this was a good idea and wanted to duplicate.  Also in his other videos he shows where a Win 10 VM can save important files to the array.  I thought this was a good idea too.  Then I wanted to combine the two ideas and save to the array when I boot to bare metal not just in a VM, not possible when unRAID isn't running.  So I started thinking is there a hardware solution that would be compatible with unRAID.  A hardware RAID is close however that exposes the whole RAID to Windows, not ideal nor secure.  And there is still the compatibility consideration with unRAID.  I was hoping to keep certain files on an array for data security.  I haven't come up with any solutions, just compromises.  I may have to give up on the duel duel boot idea or on keeping files on the array and just backup to the array.  It does make it harder to troubleshoot a problem within the Windows VM when you can't run it on bare metal.

 

I would like to find a way to incorporate an array for data storage which all of the VMs could use that would not break booting Windows 10 on the bare metal.

 

I suppose I could just buy a 1TB SSD and then somehow mirror / copy the files to the array whenever I am in the Windows 10 VM.

 

This is probability getting to complex to be worth the effort.

 

Any ideas or should I just keep it simple with manual backups into the array?

 

[SonWon]

After much thought, I think my best option will be:

• 1 TB SSD drive for VMs / non pass-through Linux VMs / data / and cache.
• 500 GB SSD drive for Linux pass-through drive
• 500 GB SSD drive for Win 10 pass-through drive
• 4 drives, 3 data, 1 parity, 1 TB each mech. drives for a proper array.

The two 500 GB drives will be on the same SATA controller and is in it's own IOMMU group.  They can be pass-through together since I will not need both the Linux and Win 10 active at the same time.  From the 1 TB drive I will run a Linux VM for web browsing and another Linux VM for sensitive data.  I'll do backups onto the Array from all of these.  No backups possible while booted to bare metal, bonus I can run a backup while using the rest of the system.

 

I believe I can use the 1 TB SSD drive for all of the listed functions.  I still need to investigate file formats to see what is or is not supported for conflicts.

 

Can I mount the two pass-through drives when the VM isn't running to write data to them?  I am thinking not since the pass-through for the SATA controller will hide them from unRAID.  Assuming I need to hide them from unRAID?  I guess I may not know until I actually build this PC.