FreeNAS Build with free version of ESXi

[Konrad162]

Hello dear experts!
I would like to build a machine with does components:
1. SuperMicro Supermicro Mainboard X11SCA-F Single
2. Intel Core i7-9700K
3. Crucial RDIMM DDR4 32GB, 2666MHz, CL19 ECC - CT32G4RFD4266
4. Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC 6GB GDDR6 (GV-N166SOC-6GD)
5. some 750W power supply
6. disks from the old setup

This setup will be mainly for 3 purposes:
ESXi:
Machine 1 - Windows 10 64bit for:
1. Photo editing
2. 3D visualizations
3. much less for gaming

Machine 2 - FreeNAS to backup the data
Machine 3 - ubuntu server for test purposes maybe some plex media server

And probably that would be fine, but I would like to also run this Windows 10 (machine 1) on the same computer, so keyboard mouse and monitor connected to this PC.
GPU build in i7 would be for ESXi
while GTX 1660 I would pass through to Windows 10.
To be able to control Keyboard and mouse I will have to connect this via some USB PCI-E controller (to be able to pass through the whole controller) - do you have any experience in that?

Please, let me know if that makes sense at all or it is not worth the effort.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

The i7-9700K does not support ECC RAM. See Intel link.

Read: Yes, You Can Virtualize FreeNAS

Read: "Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

Read: The Official FreeNAS Hardware Guide

 

[NickF]

And probably that would be fine, but I would like to also run this Windows 10 (machine 1) on the same computer, so keyboard mouse and monitor connected to this PC.
GPU build in i7 would be for ESXi
while GTX 1660 I would pass through to Windows 10.
To be able to control Keyboard and mouse I will have to connect this via some USB PCI-E controller (to be able to pass through the whole controller) - do you have any experience in that?

Please, let me know if that makes sense at all or it is not worth the effort.

There are two ways you can do in ESXI what you are outlining. Neither of which are "supported" with your current hardware.
Depending on how your IOMMU groups are setup on your motherboard, you MAY be able to pass the USB controller to the Windows 10 Guest, and if you cant, you would have to buy a seperate USB add-in card for your peripherals. Second, you would have to modify the passthru.map file in ESXI to force ESXI to do resets on the GPU properly or the passthru of that card to the Windows guest would not work properly. You also have to set additional flags in the VM configuration file to "trick" the guest into thinking that it is not a VM so that the nVidia drivers behave properly.

The second way would be to purchase VMUG and setup VMWare Horizon, but I doubt you would want to go down that rabbit hole, and I don't think you would have enough RAM to support all of that. Besides, if that is what you wanted to do, this Forum isn't the place to find good information on that topic.

As far as virtualizing FreeNAS, all you need is a LSI HBA passed through to the guest and at least 8 GB (if not 16) of RAM to give it. Otherwise, it will be pretty turn key. All that matters is that you are giving FreeNAS direct access to the drives, instead of the drives being handled by the hypervisor and then givne to FreeNAS. Doing hardware passthrough of the HBA is the best way to do this.

 

[Konrad162]

Many thanks for inputs, somehow I missed that this i7 doesn't support ECC. Xeon that is similar to this i7 and supports ECC costs way too much.
Maybe it is time to switch to AMD. I have done the GPU passthru on my current PC (with the cpuid flag). But I need separate USB controller.

@NickF I see that you have a server-based on AMD. could yo recommend at least some CPU and motherboard?

 

[NickF]

Many thanks for inputs, somehow I missed that this i7 doesn't support ECC. Xeon that is similar to this i7 and supports ECC costs way too much.
Maybe it is time to switch to AMD. I have done the GPU passthru on my current PC (with the cpuid flag). But I need separate USB controller.

@NickF I see that you have a server-based on AMD. could yo recommend at least some CPU and motherboard?

The best bang for your buck if you want to use an AMD CPU would be a Ryzen 5 2600 and if you want a server board with IPMI the only option you really have is the AsrockRack X470D4U. Obviously you would want ECC memory.

Whatever you decide to do, based on what you are looking for it sounds like you want two distinct boxes. That is a very common use case, having FreeNAS as storage and a hypervisor to run your virtual machines.