Recommendations for new UnRAID server

[mArBLe]

Hey all,

 

I am about to (finally, after thinking for too many years about this :P ) upgrade my Windows Home Server 2011 to something else and I have decided that to be UnRAID.
My current server is a 2nd generation Intel Core i3 and then nothing else but a separate video card (only because the mobo does not have video out, so for setup and troubleshooting purposes) and a SATA controller card. Otherwise the only thing in the chassis are lots of HDD's for storage and an SSD for the OS.

My thought at first was just to change the OS to UnRAID, but I have really fallen in love with the idea of having a gaming VM running on the UnRAID server, as I am already planning on purchase a Geforce 3080 for my gaming rig in the near future.
The main purpose for this gaming VM would be to have gaming to other devices (HTPC's, android phones, iPad tablets, Raspberry Pi's etc.), while still having a separate gaming rig.

However, I now have a couple of ways forward.

 

1. Upgrade the mobo and CPU on the server to something more modern and with more cores, plus moving my current Geforce 1080 Ti to the server, when I purchase the 3080 to my gaming rig.
2. Upgrade the mobo and CPU on the gaming rig to something more modern (not necessarily pushing number of cores), purchasing a Geforce 3080 and then moving my gaming rig's current hardware (Intel Core i5 6th gen and Geforce 1080 Ti) to the server.

 

While thinking about the above to options, I started thinking about if I really even need my separate gaming rig at all. I will still not be able to be hooked up directly to the GPU in the server, as the server is placed in our basement, so it has to be over the LAN. What I am afraid of are of course if there are issues sometimes and of course too much latency for certain games, when running them in the VM over the LAN.

 

Because otherwise a third option would of course be:

 

3. Upgrade the mobo and CPU on the server to something more modern and with more cores plus purchasing a Geforce 3080 for the server. This would then be used for gaming instead of my gaming rig as well.

And of course, when thinking about replacing my gaming rig, I of course started thinking about doing option 3 above, but also moving my current Geforce 1080 Ti to the server as well, to be able to have two separate gaming VM's on the server.

 

I would appreciate your thoughts on these different alternatives, should I keep separate gaming rig or move everything to the server, as well as suggestions for hardware for the different options above.

 

Thanks.

[Decto]

On 9/24/2020 at 3:52 PM, mArBLe said:

I am about to (finally, after thinking for too many years about this ) upgrade my Windows Home Server 2011 to something else and I have decided that to be UnRAID.

I get a headache just trying to follow your options

 

As a personal view.

If you are buying a 3080 or similar class card you should be gaming at 1440p 144Hz+ or 4k, and you need as much CPU as you can get to avoid leaving performance on the table. Any shared purpose system is likely to be suboptimal.

 

While I see the appeal of 'one box to rule them all', generally the kernal Unraid is built on is a generation or so behind the cutting edge, great for stabilty, as a storage and docker hub (I have 2 licences about to buy a 3rd so quite invested). But for high end gaming, a VM just doesn't cut it for me despite the best efforts of Linus click bait videos.

 

My current server hosts 2 gaming VM's, one a low end for Roblox permanence where my son just wants to leave his character logged in with a clicker for whatever game he's boosting, that uses an 2GB RX550, and the second one uses a 4GB 1650 which I use to stream games to a X230 thinkpad or a J1900 Gigabyte Brix, both of which are playable options with 7 days to Die, Left for Dead etc. For this performance, game streaming is fine, as a solution but I would be less inclined with a premium GPU as your not going to reliably push that performance across a network and even if you do, the encoding losses are noticable.

 

I'd go with the gaming PC upgrade and repurpose the old PC as the unraid server, however realistically you'll need more than the I5 to stretch the 1080TI if you want a gaming server since you lose 1-2 cores to unraid and it would be offensive to pair the 1080TI with anything less than 4 cores (8 threads) of its own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Decto

[mArBLe]

9 hours ago, Decto said:

I'd go with the gaming PC upgrade and repurpose the old PC as the unraid server, however realistically you'll need more than the I5 to stretch the 1080TI if you want a gaming server since you lose 1-2 cores to unraid and it would be offensive to pair the 1080TI with anything less than 4 cores (8 threads) of its own.

 

Thank you very much for your reply. I think you definitely have me convinced on this track, to keep the most powerful GPU in the gaming rig.

 

Since I posted my question I have actually investigated the possibility to upgrade the CPU for my current server mobo (can accomodate 2nd and 3rd gen Intel CPU's), as well as for my current gaming rig's mobo (can accomodate 6th gen Intel CPU's).

Unfortunately, even for 6th gen, it is next to impossible to find any cheap CPU's. My thought was to maybe upgrade to a good i7 for my gaming rig's mobo and move that board to the server, but an i7 6th gen costs almost as much as a 10th gen with double the cores and threads, so then I'd rather just splurge on a new mobo as well.

 

And like you say, the i5 will be insufficient to drive the 1080 Ti in a VM, since I will realistically only have 2-3 cores available to the VM. In fact, the i5 is around 100% even in my gaming rig with that GPU.

 

I also remembered that I have an older Geforce GTX 970 lying around as well, so my idea now is really to have this GPU plus the 1080 Ti in the future, as soon as I upgrade to 3080 in the gaming rig, running in separate VM's on the UnRAID server.

This would of course be needing an even more powerful CPU, at least a 10th gen i7, but even an i9 would be preferable.

 

So, now I am in the rough place of needing to upgrade both machines.

 

Any suggestions on hardware for an UnRAID server to accomodate two gaming VM's with the above mentioned GPU's?

 

Also, what are you using two and soon three UnRAID licenses for?

I ask because it seems that I will have a 1-2 spare computers in the near future.

[mArBLe]

@DectoAlso, how do you game on your VM's, e.g. by using Parsec, Steam streaming, Moonligt etc.?

Do you game anything outside your own LAN?

[Decto]

6 hours ago, mArBLe said:

@DectoAlso, how do you game on your VM's, e.g. by using Parsec, Steam streaming, Moonligt etc.?

Do you game anything outside your own LAN?

 

Hardware choices are endless, I'm using an older 10 core Xeon in my main server but that has a limited clock speed of 3.0-3.3Ghz so it's not suitable high end gaming.  Higher end chips for old platforms hold their value very well from all the people looking for a simple upgrade.

 

I'd keep a close eye on the AMD Zen 3 launch in around 2 weeks. There is a very good chance they will have the fastest gaming CPU's since Intel has been struggling to move nodes and the predicted performance uplift vs existing already competative parts is expected to be 15-20%.

This would bring more options as the Intel 10900k already seems to a slight bottleneck to the RTX3080 in some games. At the very least we may get some price movement. 

 

For the server you are really choosing between AMD X570 and Intel Z490 unless you go to server hardware. Have a search in the forums to see what people have working well. You really need a motherboard with good IOMMU groups, which you can only really get from recommendations. If you want to pass through USB on the machine, I'd assume a need to add one or more PCI-E x1 USB cards as onboard USB can be tricky to pass through seperately from the boot USB.

 

 I stream games using steam or parsec, even at the high end throughput you loose a fair bit of detail in dark areas so really depends on the game hence why it's not ideal for high end gaming as you spend the high end cash for a high end experience. I know some people run long HMDI or HDMI over ethernet to solve the remote problem. I haven't tried gaming outside of my lan, it works fine at 10Mbps across the Lan but that's quite an upstream load for most broadband services.

 

My 3 unraids are:

1) Main server E5-2660V3, 64GB, Mutiple GPU, 32TB

2) Backup server, an old HP N40L and 12TB where I back up my important data and the media that's highest in my list to retain.

3) Test server, I have some spare hardware which I often test things out on or may want to run more VM's that my server can reasonably host. I usually just reflash the stick from the backup server as that only runs once a week at backup time, however with some of the VM's running longer it may we usefull have a spare basic licence so I can leave my backup server in peace. The cost of the basic licence is worth the convenience and familiarity, just a matter of getting to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Decto

[mArBLe]

@Decto Thank you very much for your detailed reply.

I will keep an eye out for AMD's launch for sure.