Server Replacement

[SLogik]

Hello,

    I'm going to be replacing my 65 watt 8 core Opteron server with a 65 watt 8 core Ryzen 1700. My current server currently runs Windows 7, and runs a CPU intensive security camera application as well as file serving and media duties (Emby, SageTv).

 

   I'd like to dump Windows and see if I can run everything on UnRaid, but I have a couple questions I couldn't find the answers to after scanning the forums for a while. The VMS application I run for my cameras has a Linux version, I'd like to run that on Ubuntu in a VM. Can that application be writing to drives that are not apart of the UnRaid pool (My server holds 8 hot swap drives, can I have two drives outside UnRaid being mapped to the VM as I don't need redundancy for the video footage (plus it might not keep up with the constant writes)? I've read quite a bit about GPU pass through; the VMS application does have some GPU requirements, is it necessary to pass through a video card to the VM just to use some of it's capabilities? I'm not looking for bare metal performance here, I think it leverages it slightly for video analytics.

 

   It appears Emby, SageTv and the other apps I run are available as Docker containers, so I should be ok there. The motherboard has an m.2 slot, if UnRaid runs off of USB I thought that would be a good location for the VM and Docker containers. Does it sound like I should be able to do what I've described? Thanks in advance for your time and help.

[perhansen]

Hello,     I'm going to be replacing my 65 watt 8 core Opteron server with a 65 watt 8 core Ryzen 1700. My current server currently runs Windows 7, and runs a CPU intensive security camera application as well as file serving and media duties (Emby, SageTv).  

   I'd like to dump Windows and see if I can run everything on UnRaid, but I have a couple questions I couldn't find the answers to after scanning the forums for a while. The VMS application I run for my cameras has a Linux version, I'd like to run that on Ubuntu in a VM. Can that application be writing to drives that are not apart of the UnRaid pool (My server holds 8 hot swap drives, can I have two drives outside UnRaid being mapped to the VM as I don't need redundancy for the video footage (plus it might not keep up with the constant writes)? I've read quite a bit about GPU pass through; the VMS application does have some GPU requirements, is it necessary to pass through a video card to the VM just to use some of it's capabilities? I'm not looking for bare metal performance here, I think it leverages it slightly for video analytics.

 

   It appears Emby, SageTv and the other apps I run are available as Docker containers, so I should be ok there. The motherboard has an m.2 slot, if UnRaid runs off of USB I thought that would be a good location for the VM and Docker containers. Does it sound like I should be able to do what I've described? Thanks in advance for your time and help.

 

 

 Everything you wont to do, can be done.

With Unassigned Devices plugin, you can manage drives outside the unRaid pool.

If you wont to passthrough an entire disk, i belive you have to modify your VMs XML file, and put in your device id....

 

I have never done i myself, so maybe someone with more knowledge can answer.

 

You should defently not install you VMs and dockers on your usb. The usb stick will die verry quickly, from all the read and writes.

You should install a ssd, as a cache drive, and put all your dockers and VMs in that. That will also give you more decent speed in your VM.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

 

[JonathanM]

8 hours ago, SLogik said:

I'm going to be replacing my 65 watt 8 core Opteron server with a 65 watt 8 core Ryzen 1700

Until someone actually builds and plays with a Ryzen unraid rig, we can't say for sure what your experience will be like. Limetech said they will be building a Ryzen test rig soon, so until they do, I'd wait and see how it works.

 

When calculating which unraid license you would need, keep in mind the license counts all attached storage devices minus the actual boot USB.

[fhahn]

There is a video on Youtube by Spaceinvader One titled "How to Passthrough Harddrives, Convert Disks and test Vdisk Performance in unRAID VMs".

 

Here is a link I hope:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaB9HhpbDAI

 

I do this for a VM running Ubuntu that I installed nZEDb on. I did not want to have to go through setting up nZEDb again.

 

Frank Hahn

 

[ijuarez]

2 hours ago, fhahn said:

There is a video on Youtube by Spaceinvader One titled "How to Passthrough Harddrives, Convert Disks and test Vdisk Performance in unRAID VMs".

 

Here is a link I hope:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaB9HhpbDAI

 

I do this for a VM running Ubuntu that I installed nZEDb on. I did not want to have to go through setting up nZEDb again.

 

Frank Hahn

 

 

I recommend watching his videos, he's good, no matter what technical level your at, you may learn something new. 

[SLogik]

22 hours ago, perhansen said:

 

You should defently not install you VMs and dockers on your usb. The usb stick will die verry quickly, from all the read and writes.

You should install a ssd, as a cache drive, and put all your dockers and VMs in that. That will also give you more decent speed in your VM.

 

 

Thanks for the reply, I worded that poorly. What I should have said was "Since UnRaid runs off a USB and the motherboard has an m.2 slot, I think an m.2 drive would be the perfect place to store the VM and docker containers". I still have a 512G SSD that I would use as a cache drive, unless that would be overkill and I should use the m.2 for cache also?

[SLogik]

14 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Until someone actually builds and plays with a Ryzen unraid rig, we can't say for sure what your experience will be like. Limetech said they will be building a Ryzen test rig soon, so until they do, I'd wait and see how it works.

 

When calculating which unraid license you would need, keep in mind the license counts all attached storage devices minus the actual boot USB.

 

Thanks, my existing Windows 7 server will be running parallel until I get everything moved over and have it running for a while; so I'm happy to be a beta tester of sorts for the software on a new hardware platform From past experience there is usually some problems the first few months a new CPU/chipset comes out (Intel or AMD), with several BIOS updates until everything gets straightened out. The motherboard I went with has 8 SATA ports plus the m.2, so it sounds like I will need 9 licenses to be fully covered. I ordered a Lexar jumpdrive for UnRaid and two reverse breakout cables to connect the SAS backplanes I have to the SATA ports directly rather than a SAS card. I have a SAS9200-8E card, would that be a viable (better) option over the onboard SATA ports?

[SLogik]

Thanks for all the replies, I watched the one video and will look at the others. Does anyone have an answer regarding GPU usage for a VM without pass-through? As I mentioned previously, I think the VMS software is using Opengl for analytics and requires a low end GPU, but it doesn't appear to need bare metal performance. If that is my only option, I'll pick up an RX 460 and pass it through if absolutely necessary, but I'd rather not.

[SLogik]

Uh-oh, just read on Phoronix that it appears you should be running Linux Kernel 4.10 for good Ryzen support; if you can't run that then at least 4.9.10, which looks to be just released with UnRaid. Is there a beta with 4.10 or 4.11? (4.11 has support for the Realtec ALC1220 on most of the AM4 boards, including the one I ordered).

[trurl]

The Announcement subforum has release notes for each stable release which specifies Kernal version. There is also the Prerelease Support subforum for betas and release candidates. Looks like there isn't currently anything newer than the latest stable which you mentioned.