New to unraid/nas etc. Questions before jumping in.

[ThatNewb]

First I'm still unsure if I should use unraid or freenas. I want the server to host a windows VM, Plex server (can be hosted on the windows vm), and a pihole.
as a side question about the windows vm and plex. For example. If my server has 8 threads and I dedicate 6 threads to plex, 4 Gb ramd, and 5 Tb. Does this mean that 6 threads and 5 Tb will be unusable for other tasks even if they are idle? I heard that freenas doesn't use resources unless it's needed or am I wrong?

 

Finally, I want to have a few hard drive set up and then add to it later to expand the storage. (I heard unraid is good at this, I'm unsure what good options freenas has on this)

 

Please help me fill in some information that I'm lacking so I may make a good choice.

 

Thank You in advance.

 

[Squid]

1 minute ago, ThatNewb said:

For example. If my server has 8 threads and I dedicate 6 threads to plex, 4 Gb ramd, and 5 Tb. Does this mean that 6 threads and 5 Tb will be unusable for other tasks even if they are idle?

Depends on how you set things up.

 

You can isolate CPUs from unRaid and dedicate them specifically to the VM, in which case unRaid will never touch them regardless of if the VM is doing anything or not.

 

Generally though, you would run Plex as an app on unRaid itself instead of within the VM, in which case whenever Plex isn't doing anything the OS can utilize the cores for whatever it wants to use. 

 

And, many many possibilities in between.

4 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

I may make a good choice.

IMHO, there is only one choice  

[ThatNewb]

Thanks for the reply. An app for unraid sounds great.

 

So for the space and cpu usage regarding VM. Just to confirm so I'm not mistaken. It is possible to get up vm to not have dedicated cpu cores and other resources? ex: say if I want 16 VM and I just say to allow 6 thread for each max then it is still possible?

 

 

[Squid]

27 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

It is possible to get up vm to not have dedicated cpu cores

Yes.  It's actually the default configuration for unRaid to not reserve CPU cores for VM's exclusive use.

27 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

other resources?

Memory allocated to a VM is going to be unavailable for any other use if that VM is running.  If it's not running, then the memory is available to anything else.

28 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

16 VM and I just say to allow 6 thread for each max then it is still possible?

Yes.  

[ThatNewb]

Thanks a ton for this info. How about the storage? if it's set to have 60 Gb but windows install and some programs only use 30. Is the other 30 is usable? And can you expand that storage to say 120 down the road? (I assume it's like vmware so that would be the case but a confirmation would be amazing)

 

 

 

 

Thanks again.

[Squid]

6 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

if it's set to have 60 Gb but windows install and some programs only use 30. Is the other 30 is usable?

Default operation of vdisks is like this.

 

vdisk only takes up the space required (ie: 30GB of the 60GB reserved).  Excess space is usable for anything else.

As the VM is used, the vdisk will gradually grow to it's maximum size of 60GB regardless of how much space is actually used within the VM

 

Many / Most people change that operation so that the vdisk only takes up the amount of space that's actually required (ie: 30GB) and allow the excess to be used for anything else.

9 minutes ago, ThatNewb said:

And can you expand that storage to say 120 down the road?

Yes

[ThatNewb]

Thank you so much for the responses.