First time unRAID build, looking for some advice


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I am looking to build a new server as my last NAS has bit the dust and left me with blank hard drives now.

I need the system to be able to run a couple dockers (Plex, Sonarr, etc) basic media sharing.

I will only need be able to stream to 5-6 clients at a time, only transcoding 1 steam.

I need it to run Windows 10 for a gaming, Nothing hard core. World of Warcraft, and the like

I may have the occasional stream as well.

My thought was to use the SSD as a cache drive, a place to store the Plex database, and use it for the Windows 10 VM

 

 

I have some hardware picked out, but want to verify that everything is compatible and will work correctly before ordering.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Gaming K5 AORUS

Processor: Intel i7 7700K

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Memory: 32 gb of Corsair Vengeance LPX

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Xtreme Gaming 

Power Supply: EVGA Supernova G2 650W

HBA add in card: LSI 9211-8I or IBM m1015

Case: NZXT H440

SSD: Crucial MX300 1TB SATA 2.5

5-6 Seagate NAS rated hard drives.

UPS: Cyberpower 1500VA/900Watt LX1500GU

 

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

JackD

 

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Not sure if bits will all work together - putting all your parts into pcpartpicker.com is a good way to check that.

 

 

But, the motherboard supports VT-D which you'll need for the VMs and the CPU has more than enough power to do what you need.  It's only got 4 cores though, which might impact performance if you want to run more than one VM in the future.

 

 

If you haven't already bought the SSD, I personally would spend my cash a bit differently:

 

 

(i) buy 2x500GB and have a cache pool for redundancy so you don't lose any files if one drive goes

(ii) buy 2x250GB SSDs for a cache pool and 1x500GB for the VM (or even smaller and keep files/games on array and move over when need - there's a youtube video on this with unRAID).  That way your VM has a dedicated SSD so nothing happening with plex etc will impact performance

 

 

I have a 2x250GB cache and a 1x500GB (wish I'd bought smaller as I only use 100GB to run 2x50GB VMs, although I'm about to build a 3rd) which is enough to cover the amount of new files I write on a normal day (I don't write torrents etc to my cache) and the cache only shares I need.

 

 

You might want to check if you need a 2nd cheap videocard for unraid to use - but there are ways to pass through the primary GPU to a VM and use unRAID headless.  I've done this by stubbing my GPUs.  Read the bit about stubbing and assigning in this post:

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=51874.msg497875#msg497875

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Thank you giving some advice on the cache drives and have rearranged my proposed build to include 2 SSD drives for cache/Plex , and 1 separate SSD for my VM.

As far as adding other VM's there may be one more but that will not be a real on system resources other than memory.

I added everything to the build and the only issues that it came up with were that I need at least 2 more SATA connectors as the motherboard only supports 6. But in the process I did discover that the power supply while large enough doesn't come with enough SATA power cables so I will look into alternatives to that issue.

 

As far as I was able to tell, I should be able to use the iGPU for unRAID, and then the Geforce 1060 for the raid,at least I thought I had read that.

 

Any other suggestions that anyone has would be greatly appreciated, as I need to get a NAS back in place very soon.

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Word of warning - it's unlikely you'll be able to control the rgbs from within a VM as they can't be assigned as a device (similarly with all the other motherboard bells and whistles like fan control).  I've got the same problem with my mobo.  If you really want LEDs, you'll have to buy a hue+ or something similar

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I wasn't sure if I could use the software control on the lighting or not. Thanks for answering that for me.

I am hopeful that I can still do some of the basic lighting etc as it can be setup in the bios.

 

 

yes, you can do that.  I have mine cycling through colours and I bought a cheap Deepcool RGB350 which I'm very happy with for some more lighting.

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