Non VT-D Installation [Solved]


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Hi

 

I'm considering buying UNraid for my Plex/Home Server that also doubles as my main Win10 PC, because I've had another drive go and it's a pain in the ass to replace.  I have a couple of questions please:

 

1a. Is it possible to install Unraid on my PC and have it boot directly to Windows 10 with Unraid running in the background?  My family occasionally use my PC, so I need something that lets them reboot and login easily if necessary if I'm not there i.e. I don't want them having to use Unraid to boot into Windows 10

1b. building on 1a, is it possible to have unraid boot, a Win8 VM boot in the background (I use this for torrents with a VPN and I'm happy controlling by RDP) and for the Win10 machine to be the 'live' machine on the screen?  Is there a better solution to this e.g. using a docker to run utorrent behind a VPN?

2a.  I'm planning on upgrading my mobo and CPU in the future to one that supports VT-d.  Will this be fairly easy to do i.e. Unraid will take care of virtual driver updates etc?  Or would it be best to do a fresh Win10 install on top of Unraid?

2b.  As part of the upgrade I'll probably upgrade my cache drive and create a pool.  Is this as easy as stopping the array, remove the old cache (make sure it's synced!), and add the new cache pool drives?

3.  With a parity drive in place, if a drive fails, all files are still accessible until a replacement drive is added?

 

Thanks in advance for any help

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1a. Is it possible to install Unraid on my PC and have it boot directly to Windows 10 with Unraid running in the background?  My family occasionally use my PC, so I need something that lets them reboot and login easily if necessary if I'm not there i.e. I don't want them having to use Unraid to boot into Windows 10

 

No, you will not be able to do any of this without VT-d there is no way around this (Your subject line clearly states "Non VT-D Installation").

UnRAID doesn't need a GPU, however it will grab one if it is there and available, however any VM will still be managed by the host/hypervisor which would then allocate/assign resources to the VM. To do this with a GPU (or any physical hardware device), you need VT-d, as the VM is a child to UnRAID as the parent.

The best you can do is boot UnRAID in GUI mode, however that environment is not meant for anything more than UnRAID management.

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1a. Just set up a VM to autostart at boot, and set the array to auto start also from the unraid menu.

1b. I would use delugevpn or rtorrentvpn for this instead.

Thanks - I'll look into delugevpn and rtorrentvpn.  I'm using PIA with utorrent, but I bet there's a better solution.

 

1a. Is it possible to install Unraid on my PC and have it boot directly to Windows 10 with Unraid running in the background?  My family occasionally use my PC, so I need something that lets them reboot and login easily if necessary if I'm not there i.e. I don't want them having to use Unraid to boot into Windows 10

 

No, you will not be able to do any of this without VT-d there is no way around this (Your subject line clearly states "Non VT-D Installation").

UnRAID doesn't need a GPU, however it will grab one if it is there and available, however any VM will still be managed by the host/hypervisor which would then allocate/assign resources to the VM. To do this with a GPU (or any physical hardware device), you need VT-d, as the VM is a child to UnRAID as the parent.

The best you can do is boot UnRAID in GUI mode, however that environment is not meant for anything more than UnRAID management.

 

Thanks - that answers 2a and 2b as I'll install unraid when I upgrade my mobo and CPU.

 

Any pointers on 3?  I'm assuming that's a 'Yes'.

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1a. Just set up a VM to autostart at boot, and set the array to auto start also from the unraid menu.

1b. I would use delugevpn or rtorrentvpn for this instead.

Thanks - I'll look into delugevpn and rtorrentvpn.  I'm using PIA with utorrent, but I bet there's a better solution.

 

Any pointers on 3?  I'm assuming that's a 'Yes'.

delugevpn and rtorrentvpn is very easy to set up with PIA, username and password and you ready to rock :)

I would recommend delugevpn over rtorrentvpn btw.

 

3. I think that is a yes, very certain of it. Not 100% sure tho

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3. Not necessarily. The failed drive would be emulated so if corruption already corrupted the drive file system then it would be "unmountable". You will have to go through the appropriate procedure to fix the drive.

All files from the rest of the drives (i.e. those not failing) will be available.

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3. Not necessarily. The failed drive would be emulated so if corruption already corrupted the drive file system then it would be "unmountable". You will have to go through the appropriate procedure to fix the drive.

All files from the rest of the drives (i.e. those not failing) will be available.

File or filesystem corruption is different than a failing / failed drive.  Parity protects against the latter.  And all of the files that were on the failed drive are all still available even if its still in a failed state

 

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Thanks everyone - very impressed with the community response to my 1st post.  Very helpful rather than the 'use Google's response you get on some forums!

 

Speccing up new PC (thinking i7-6700k and a z170 mobo - not sure which one yet) this weekend - looking forward to configuring.  I'm going to get a couple of cheap graphics cards and monitors  so I can create VMs for the wife and kids. 

 

Any recommendations for GPUs?  We won't be gaming (kids are under 7) - I used to use fanless HD6450s back in the day before I got integrated mobos

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Many people have had great luck with the AMD 6450 so if you have them you may want to try them first, and also the 5450 (however I didn't so I won't recommend it).

Since your build looks to have onboard GPU, I'd recommend you stick with Nvidia, as they're the current recommended card overall (AMD can be a bit more picky across the range of selection).

Low power, possibly fanless, I highly recommend the GeForce GT710/720/730 I have extensively tested the 720 in both SeaBIOS (my primary usage) and OVMF and do not have any complaints.

 

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Many people have had great luck with the AMD 6450 so if you have them you may want to try them first, and also the 5450 (however I didn't so I won't recommend it).

Since your build looks to have onboard GPU, I'd recommend you stick with Nvidia, as they're the current recommended card overall (AMD can be a bit more picky across the range of selection).

Low power, possibly fanless, I highly recommend the GeForce GT710/720/730 I have extensively tested the 720 in both SeaBIOS (my primary usage) and OVMF and do not have any complaints.

 

Thanks will check out the geforce cards

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