Advanced Configuration Advice

[Arbadacarba]

I'm looking for some advice on best practices and to see if the general consensus might be that I'm completely wrong in my thoughts:

 

I have a server that is Desktop hardware based and has been running really well for a few months. I use it as a Media server and for OS testing and Documentation.

 

I recently got it in my head that I would like to run a Gaming VM on the system, so I added a GTX 1660 Ti  and got that running fairly well. The NVMe drive is partitioned into 2 drives and the first is my Windows 10 OS drive (It boots natively on the hardware) and the second partition I am trying to use as a High speed holder for VMs and Unraid System files (libvirt, system and docker files). The Unnasigned 1TB SSD is my Steam Drive.

 

Trouble arrises when, for whatever reason, my Windows 10 system shuts off unexpectedly. Either a crash (rare) or a screwup on my part (less rare).

 

The second partition is left in a read only state until I restart the VM (and I think shut it down properly), but of course with the libvirt file on that drive I can't restart the VM until I copy it over to another drive - reconfigure the VM settings - Reboot the Unraid Server - and launch the VM. This is a bit much. When I'm testing things I can screw this up several times a day, and after my last oops, I lost all my VM configurations when the VM service would not restart.

 

My questions are these:

 

1. Am I losing anything by leaving libvirt on the cache instead of the NVMe drive?

2. Is there a way to separate the second partition so that Windows can't access it but Unraid can? That way it never screws that up.

3. Should I move the other  unraid folders off this drive and leave them on the cache. Is there really any benefit to the NVMe for Docker folders and the Plex transcode folder?

 

Thanks everyone, I am loving this system and the potential that it holds.

 

Arbadacarba

[testdasi]

18 hours ago, Arbadacarba said:

My questions are these:

 

1. Am I losing anything by leaving libvirt on the cache instead of the NVMe drive?

2. Is there a way to separate the second partition so that Windows can't access it but Unraid can? That way it never screws that up.

3. Should I move the other  unraid folders off this drive and leave them on the cache. Is there really any benefit to the NVMe for Docker folders and the Plex transcode folder?

1. libvirt should be on cache. Putting it anywhere else just complicates the matter.
2. You can create multiple partitions on the same drive using command lines. Then just pass through a specific partition to Windows using the ata-id method.
3. Probably no perceivable benefit if cache is SSD (unless you put extremely high load on the SSD). NVMe itself only matters with the right (heavy) workload.

 

 

 

 

 

[Arbadacarba]

1 hour ago, testdasi said:

You can create multiple partitions on the same drive using command lines. Then just pass through a specific partition to Windows using the ata-id method.

Thanks for the reply

 

Do you mean something other than segmenting the drive during windows install?

 

[testdasi]

Just now, Arbadacarba said:

Thanks for the reply

 

Do you mean something other than segmenting the drive during windows install?

 

Sort of yes and no.

 

If you pass-through the entire NVMe to Windows during install (either via PCIe method or ata-id method), then you can use the Windows installer to divide your NVMe into multiple partitions (and then format them). And then shutdown the VM, edit the VM template and just passthrough one of the partitions that you created (using ata-id method).

If you look at Unassigned Devices, you will be able to tell there are multiple partitions and you will be able to mount the non-Windows for other uses and the Windows one for the VM.

The drawback of this method is that Windows won't let you format the non-Windows partition in xfs format, which works better with Unraid and Unassigned Devices. Btw, you should use FAT32 for the non-Windows partition, and not NTFS.

 

The above is kinda more user-friendly way to do it albeit rather long-winded.

You can do the same thing using the Unraid console (either directly or via SSH).

 

In your case though, you probably might want to use vdisk instead.

The overhead using ata-id method or pass-through is actually only slightly less than vdisk (particularly raw vdisk) since you still have to go through virtio / scsi. In my own testing, only about 1% or so i.e. not perceivable in real life.

 

If speed is important, PCIe method is the only way to go but of course the drive will be used exclusively by the VM.