6850k workstation into 2 vm's - yes or no?


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Hey folks. I am looking at building a new PC for my shop. I need 4 pc's actually, So I think im going to use my current workstation to run 2 VMs (same as LTT's 2 gamers 1 cpu video series)    

 

Basically I am just looking for the community to give me the yes, or no, go/no go  on this.  

 

The hardware, 

i7-6850k with 40 pcie lanes.  

x99 deluxe 2 mobo, with 2 usb controllers. (shows in device manager as separate controllers, and I have a thunderbolt card if needed)

2xquadro p2000's (ran in x8 mode)

32gb of ram that I will split into 2.

1 512gb samsung 950 pro (i can upgrade if needed)

 

the board also has 2 gigabit ethernet controllers, so I could pass through one to each machine and connect both to the switch. (I think)

 

I want to make 2 VM's with 3 cores / 6 threads, and 12gb of ram each, and each with its own quadro p2000. i have looked closely at the motherboard and I beleive I can distrubute the lanes appropirately, and fortuanately have 2 usb controllers built in.  I will then put a passthrough USB  to a hub on each controllers, and run keyboards/mouse/usb keys from there. ( my big issues I have is that i HAVE to use USB keys regularly, but if thats an issue I can probably find some sort of network mountable usb dock and make it nothing more than a network folder) 

 

then on the hard drive.  Can i run 2 machines off one ssd? or do I definitely need a second,

Lastly, do i HAVE to have the 3rd gpu  like LTT did in their videos for unraid?

 

 


thank you for reading my long post. Im very excited about this project. Ive wanted to have a good reason to virtualize for a long time. 

Edited by Mad_Scientist
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OK ...talking to myself a little here... but I just loaded Unraid onto a flash drive and booted it up.  it appears that I DO have multiple USB controllers and they are in seperate IOMMU groups. Im not exactly sure how they map out, so I am going to start moving things around and figure out what usb port goes where. 


Someone tell me stop before I get to far into this.. please. LOL 

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Assuming the hardware breakouts in clean IOMMU groups it sounds like a "go" to me. Before I upgraded my system (in footer), I did two gaming VM's with a 3930K. 

 

EDIT: just looked up the CPU, 6 cores 12 threads, and you were planning on splitting 3/3 - that leaves nothing for Unraid. You'll probably need to break that up as 2 cores, with 2-HT, so for threads per VM. and leave the other 2 cores for Unraid.  Yes you could run both VM's off of the same SSD by making two disk image files for each VM. I haven't looked at it, but I think if you look through the forums you can dig up info on using ButterFS snap-shot feature to run two different VM's with just a single set of file(s). 

 

No you don't have to have a third gpu, like Linus, if you're willing to run/access Unraid "head-less," or simply from the Web interface. 

Edited by Jcloud
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Thanks very much for your input guys. I think Im going to give this a shot.  I talked with the man footing the bill and I also have the go ahead to start looking for a decently priced 6900k to get some more cores to work with. but that shouldnt stop me from getting it started.     I like where this is headed, id rather see one powerful machine at 70-80% load all the time, than 2 or 3 machines mostly sitting idle.  

 

Im going to pass through the GPU after i get it booted and use the web interface. I dont need to see anything in the bios, Ive got that pretty well tuned over the years as far as overclock goes. 

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Hey folks. one more question.

 

I have decided im going to go the PCIe USB card route.  Now that I know a little more about this, it is simpler.  save me enough time trying to figure out what's what to pay for the card.    


But I still dont have a clear answer on hot plugging?  I am buying USB docks, (one for each workstation)  that have multiple USB parts, and SD card drives. I need all of that to work like normal.    the workers will not be able to accidentally stick a usb stick in the main PC. only the dock will be on their desk.  

 

(i REALLY want to try thunderbolt fiber optics and thunderbolt docks  but thats another day LOL)

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40 minutes ago, Mad_Scientist said:

I have decided im going to go the PCIe USB card route

Assuming you pass-through a USB controller, said USB-ports connected to that controller should be PnP detection to the guestVM like you want. 

If a user plugs into a USB port not through said controller(s) it will show up under Unraid, in the form of: syslog'ed and/or Unassigned drives plug-in (in case of USB storage device; and you've installed said plug-in).

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2 minutes ago, Jcloud said:

Assuming you pass-through a USB controller, said USB-ports connected to that controller should be PnP detection to the guestVM like you want. 

If a user plugs into a USB port not through said controller(s) it will show up under Unraid, in the form of: syslog'ed and/or Unassigned drives plug-in (in case of USB storage device; and you've installed said plug-in).

That sounds great. thanks. They wont have access to any ports but whats on the dock, so this should work.  Thanks again!

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