[1st build] [Ryzen] [10 GBit/s] [Workstation] Should I expect any issues?

[2Stoned]

Hi there

I'm planning to build my first unRAID rig. I plan to run the following VMs:

 

* OPNsense as 24/7 firewall with 10 GBit/s on the WAN side. I'd like to have 10 GBits for the VMs as well and 1 GBit/s for internal physical connections. 

* Arch Linux as my daily workstation (mainly programming, office, browsing, mails, however some physical simulation will run from time to time) and running kodi on a TV (3 Displays in total, I think GPU passthrough for this one is the best thing to do: 2 monitors and 1 TV) with HD-audio passthrough to the receiver via HDMI. 

** running kodi as a docker image or as openELEC or libreELEC would be an option, but I need the HD-audio passthrough! 

* Windows 10 for Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat 

* maybe a sophos XG in bridged mode, just for the fun of it 

* additional testing VMs (openBSD, Linux distros, maybe some docker things like pyLoad) 

 

So, I think nothing too heavy. I planed to build the following rig. Will it run without issues? 

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3950X

Mainboard: Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra

RAM: 4*Kingston ValueRAM Server Premier (1x, 16GB, DDR4-2666, DIMM 288, ECC) 

PSU: FRACTAL DESIGN

Ion+ Platinum, 560 Watt (FD-PSU-IONP-560P-BK)

10 GBit NIC: ASUS XG-C100C

GPU workstation: Radeon RX 5500 XT Pulse, Radeon RX 5500 XT, 8.0GB GDDR6 (passed through) 

GPU unRAID: just a passive GPU I'll get on ebay

Storage: 2* Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe SSD M.2, 1.0TB, 1 as parity. Or how many SSDs do I need and what kind of to have a failsafe and fast system? What is best practice? 

Case: be quiet silent base 801

 

Will I run into any problems? Should I replace something? Add something? How should I set up the storage? 

 

Thank you very much in advance! 

[testdasi]

A few pointers:

• SSD array (especially SSD array with parity) is not officially supported. While it mostly works fine, there are issues / limitations
  • No trim support so you will have to rely on passive over-provisioning to maintain write speed (i.e. leave empty space)
  • Some SSD garbage collection / write leveling can cause parity error
• For best performance, you want your SSD in the cache pool or mounted as unassigned devices.
• For NVMe SSD, the best performance is achieved by passing it through to the VM as a PCIe device. Of course, the disadvantage is only a single VM can use that device at any one time (and given it's storage, you probably want a single VM to use it exclusively).
• In your case, I would suggest
  • Get an additional cheap HDD (or SATA SSD) to put in the array
  • Use 1 of the 2 NVMe in the cache pool (e.g. for vdisks of various VMs you want to run, docker image, docker appdata, etc.)
  • Pass through the other NVMe to your daily driver for best performance.
    • Alternatively, mount it as unassigned devices and put more vdisk / storage etc. on it.
• Expect issues with passing through AMD GPUs due to reset issues. To date, it is still not fixed.
  • Generally speaking if you have 2 GPUs, passing through Nvidia is less troublesome (with no guarantee).
• VM networking is 10Gbe virtio ethernet (bridge to the host ethernet)
• I can't speak for your 10Gbe network plan since I don't do it. Personally though I would not rely on a VM for critical infrastructures such as a network firewall. There are too many variables of things going wrong e.g. I have seen recent issues with FreeBSD based VM and passed-through NIC.
• You don't need ECC RAM. It's just additional cost for practically no impact. Unraid isn't FreeNAS ZFS.

 

For what you are planning to do, Unraid may not be the best fit to be honest. Something like Proxmox or VMWare ESXi may be a better fit. Even Ubuntu + KVM probably also works.

 

 

[2Stoned]

Thank you very much for your suggestions! 

 

Is it possible to pass through 1 NVMe SSD and install my main workstation onto this one, use the other as cache, and a SATA SSD for the other VMs AND have a storage that is accessible to the other VMs? Kind of shared? 

 

Why wouldn't you recommend to use unRAID but proxmox instead? (ESXi only supports 8 cores / VM in the free version). 

 

Does the GPU recommendation change from time to time? I often read that AMD GPUs are the easiest and therefore recommended, now you tell me the opposite. 😛