FreeNAS + a heavily loaded Windows VM = possible?

[topgeek]

Greetings,

New to FreeNAS; trying to do my homework now before I purchase the hardware.

I'm putting together a NAS with approximately 50TB (before RAID). Fairly light usage (small business.. just a few users - mainly storing a bunch of seldom accessed media + Plex and some file storage).

My question is in regards to FreeNAS's virtual box plug-in capabilities - and whether I can potentially eliminate another "always on" server that we have.
The other server is a security camera server. It is running in Windows 10 with an i7-920 that varies between 40-55% cpu load when all the cameras are running with motion detection on. The security software is multi-core and does use all 4 cores and the 4 hyperthreads (it doesn't use much RAM - maybe 4GB).
**edit: the cameras are all IP cameras - there is no special video capture card or anything needed. Just windows software.

I'm wondering if I run a strong enough xeon box if it is possible for me to put this windows 10 machine into a virtualbox on the freenas server?
Is there any chance this would work if I throw enough RAM and CPU at it or am I being overly hopeful?

Any Suggestions on how much CPU it would take to cover the 50% i7-920 load + FreeNas & Plex?
Also looking for a board with 10 SATA ports.

cheer and thanks,
Ed

 

[Stux]

I can't see a reason why it wouldn't work.

If you want more than 4 cores, you're probably looking at a Xeon E5, and they can have 10 SATAs, lots of PCI lanes, up to 1TB of RAM and up to 22 cores. I use an E5-1650v4, which is easily 4x faster than a 920. (6 cores, 12 threads, 4ghz turbo, and about twice the IPC of Nehalem (the 920))

Alternatively, a high end Skylake platform, which will have 8 SATAs, but you can get them with the LSI 3008 built in for a total of 14 direct attached drives, and more with an expander.

Skylake is limited to 4 hyperthreaded cores and 64GB of RAM.

Skylake should do.

 

[Mirfster]

Just a thought, but is the Win 10 box doing anything else besides running the camera software? Curious, since if that is all it really is doing perhaps you may want to consider leveraging a different OS and Software (if supported by the vendor). Not that I truly have any suggestions, just pondering... ;)

 

[topgeek]

The box also runs a few small things & plex - nothing the freenas can't handle however the surveillance software is a windows only program and has some specific features in it that we are dependent upon. We would prefer to not have to change surveillance software if for no other reason the amount of time we have invested in tuning various cameras to very specific tasks.

Out of curiosity does freeNAS have an equivalent payload to Synology's Surveillance Station that folks are using?
And/or does anyone know if the linux world has a surveillance software package available with advanced features like license plate detection or unattended bag detection?

Stux: what motherboard are you using with your E5?

Thanks for the feedback!


.mobile

 

[Stux]

Stux: what motherboard are you using with your E5?

X10SRi-F

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...24-supermicro-x10-sri-f-xeon-e5-1650v4.46262/

 

[Jurgen Segaert]

Out of curiosity does freeNAS have an equivalent payload to Synology's Surveillance Station that folks are using?
And/or does anyone know if the linux world has a surveillance software package available with advanced features like license plate detection or unattended bag detection?

There are some discussions & how-to guides on this forum related to Zoneminder. Not sure if it provides all the features you're looking for, but it may be worth take a look.

 

[Dice]

I'm smelling E5 territory!
Once one machine has been virtualized properly, other unknown duties are likely to follow a similar destiny :)