Daily driving unraid?

[FredsTech]

Hi,

I'm thinking of turning my main computer to a unraid server with Win10 VM (maybe some linux ones in the future). Reason for this is that my electric bill has gone up with a huge amount with the current setup. I'm using freenas on a seperat computer. I want the redundancy for my data (for when a drive fails) and I'm not thinking of this as a backup.

 

When I want to use the computer I'll have to start it up with unraid and then launch the VM for Win10. I think I've read that you can start it automatically. Either way I'm fine with it

 

First question: Is it damaging for the array to be shut down on a daily basis?

Second question: Are there much penalty for running Win10 in VM instead of bare metal?

Third question: USB devices, just plug and play? I'm using a USB soundcard for recording audio.

 

The hardware I'm planing to use:

Intel I7 9700K

Asus ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming

32GB Vengeance ram (4 sticks)

Asus GTX1060 3GB

1x3TB, 3x1TB mechanical HDD, 250GB NVME HD for cache (I think). Planing to add drives with time.

 

Any questions I should ask myself or you who's reading this?

 

Best Regards,

Fred

PS: English is not my native language so if I need to clarify anything please tell me.

[FredsTech]

Anyone? Any input?

 

Maybe I have to use raid on my motherboard? It's a hassle when adding drives though.

Edited June 22, 2020 by FredsTech
Adding info

[meep]

You will be able to start the windows vm automatically

 

Should be no problem shutting down array daily, provided that you do it correctly , not just pulling the plug!

 

windos performance will be largely on par with a bare metal system for most tasks, assuming you are passing through a Gpu, and sufficient cpu cores and RAM. Conventional wisdom says you’ll have a 5-10% performance drop, but you’ll only really notice it in benchmarks or serious gaming. You do need to reserve some system resources to allow unRAID run.

 

for usb, for best results, pass through a whole usb controller / adapter. This is especially relevant when working with usb audio devices which won’t perform at all well if passed through directly to a vm. Much better to pass through the usb controller and attache the usb device to that.

 

good luck,

[FredsTech]

Wonderful! Thank you meep for taking your time and answering my questions. Much appreciated! It will be a fun project and I love learning new things. And I never pull the plug

[Greygoose]

Sorry to jump into thread.

 

Is there a preferred USB controller, chipset?

 

When working with multiple GPUs for several VMs I believe a gfx card must be reserved for the unraid OS.