VDI Server Build

[rm1740]

Hey,

 

So I am coming from the enterprise world and pretty new to UNRAID, in the past have deployed tons of VDI solutions using the main stream vendors (VMWare, Citrix, ect), however have a small project for a friends small business and want to help him out. I can get my hands on some used enterprise servers. The main use would be to deliver around 20-25 Windows 10 virtual desktops via RDP to his staff, + 2 Windows Server 2019 VM's. 

 

I am currently speccing the following:

 

DELL R730 with:

2 x E5-2670 V3 CPU (12 physical cores, 24 logical cores)

256GB DDR4 RAM

8 x 1TB SATA SSD in RAID 5 (or JBOD)

2 x 750W PSU

1 x  Dual Port 10GB SFP+ NIC

 

Now my question is, I have the PCIe slots and space to put in 2 x NVIDIA TESLA GPU's, however will UNRAID be able to "Share" the GPU's to all the VM's?

 

Is all the hardware compatible with UNRAID? 

Is there a physical processor limit to UNRAID? (as there is also a 4 socket 80 physical core server available for not much more)

Is it possible for 2-4 NVIDIA TESLA GPU's to be supported by UNRAID?

Is it possible to configure hardware RAID, and then pass that logical volume to UNRAID?

 

Thanks in advance and I really appreciate any help.

 

[JonathanM]

I don't know if unraid is going to be a good fit for your use case. At its heart, unraid is a NAS, with VM and docker services added on.

 

No processor limit that I know of.

Unraid uses KVM https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page

for its VM engine, so pretty much all the VM compatibility is directly linked to the current capability of KVM.

 

Unraid doesn't support SSD's in the main storage array, and hardware RAID support overall is hit and miss. It expects to have direct access via a plain HBA to spinner drives for the main array.  You can use SSD's in the cache pool, which support BTRFS RAID levels.

 

You could probably shoehorn and modify unraid to do what you want, but it's not the typical use case, and it's definitely not the norm.

 

The other issue is ongoing maintenance. For home / hobby use, it's awesome. For business, the NAS portion is rock solid and easy to maintain. For a VM host, I would recommend the person that set it up be a full time on call employee to take care of any issues that may come up. For you to set it up and turn it over, probably not a good idea.