Guidance on Server Build

[Mark D]

Hello all!

New here to unraid and here is my build that I'm starting. 

Gigabyte x399 Extreme

AMD TR 1950x

2x16 DDR4 3600mhz will upgrade more ram as needed

2X8 Tb 7200rpm parity Drives (Rest of my drives will be 8TB after testing)

4x500gb for testing and initial setup will replace with 8TB once testing and setup is complete

2xSSD 256gb cache drives (will upgrade size after testing if needed)

3xNvme drives onboard will be used for VM's if possible again more testing

2xAMD x5100 8gb (these are extras that i have to use for passthrough to vm's)

3xDVD BluRay to rip hopefully 3 movies at a time. Have over 600 titles (I know makemkv supports multiple dvd's but not sure how this will passthrough to W10)

 

Please let me know if there are any problems with the build above or any recommended changes.

My planned usage is as follows.

Storage / Backups

PLEX movies, music and photos

W10 VM Daily driver with dual displays some minor gaming

VM Testing of other OS's

 

Thanks in advance for any comments/reponses.

 

Thanks Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Frank1940]

Personally, I would use one of those 8TB drives that you have slotted for parity drives as your first data drive.  (I know you probably have those four 500GB laying around.)  You really don't need dual parity with only a very few data drives if you setup the notification system, setup a monthly parity check, and take action as soon as a problem is reported.  Add data drives only as you need them.  When you get to about five or six data drives then consider adding the second parity drive at that time if you still think you want one.  

 

With regard to dual parity, please understand that having dual parity does not eliminate the need for a secure offsite backup of any files that are irreplaceable!  Even with dual parity, there are still a whole hosts of things with a higher probability of occuring that can happen to cause a total loss of all data--- Fire, lightning, theft of server, flooding, malware,  etc.  Dual parity does not eliminate the need for you to do due diligence as far as maintaining your server.  IF you don't do that you will have data loss even with dual parity! 

[testdasi]

• 2x16 DDR4 3600mhz will upgrade more ram as needed - not recommended to use 2 stick with Threadripper. You are better off with 4x8GB if price is an issue. The motherboard has 8 RAM slots so it does not limit your ability to upgrade (to a certain extent). Also, no point getting 3600MHz. For most workloads, especially in a virtualised envi, you will be hardpressed to find any perceptible diff with those highly overclocked RAM but more likely instability.
• 2X8 Tb 7200rpm parity Drives (Rest of my drives will be 8TB after testing) - Frank's post above is more sensible use for the 8TB.
• 2xSSD 256gb cache drives (will upgrade size after testing if needed) - Unless you are storing critical data that needs RAID1 protection, it's better to get 1x512GB.
• 3xNvme drives onboard will be used for VM's if possible again more testing - If the Xtreme is anything like my Designare, the 3rd M.2 slots (the 2280 slot) is in the same IOMMU group as many other things, most notably the NIC. So you won't be able to pass it through the the VM via PCIe route without ACS Override, which may cause severe performance issues. You can of course pass it through as a disk or use it for a vdisk image with performance penalties as usual.
• 2xAMD x5100 8gb (these are extras that i have to use for passthrough to vm's)  - You might want to google to see if these cards are happy with PCIe pass-through on Unraid. Having someone with successful build would be best but even having someone reporting issues would be good to know e.g. solutions. You have 2x cards so in case you wonder, last I checked, Crossfire doesn't work in VM.
• 3xDVD BluRay to rip hopefully 3 movies at a time. Have over 600 titles (I know makemkv supports multiple dvd's but not sure how this will passthrough to W10)  - Why W10? There is makemkv docker, as well as Ripper. Ripper is better in my opinion - just because it ejects the disk automatically for you once done. You can run multiple dockers easily, 1 fer each optical drive. Just change the name.

If the Gigabyte Xtreme is anything like my Designare (which it should be), you should get a cheapo GPU to use in the PCIe x1 slot for Unraid to boot with (the BIOS should allow you to pick which slot as primary GPU). That saves a lot of troubles with GPU pass-through. The Zotac (in my sig) is pretty much the only option I'm aware of that is easily obtainable but you don't exactly need much more than that.

[Mark D]

Great this will help a bunch. I'm only using the 500gb's to start. Going with 1 8tb to start works. I was going to upgrade all 500's to 8tb's once i got everything running smoothly. 

 

Thanks Frank1940

 

 As for the ram i was just trying to future proof a bit. I will populate more slots, thanks for the info on docker to rip dvds and knowing multiple are support will be great to get my library going.  Also the vid cards were just extras but it they don't work i will find out what others are using.    

Thanks Testdasi.

 

I really excited about the build and testing.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Mark D