Which combination of tools for NAS plus NVidia Passthrough

Rod Martin

Dabbler
Joined
May 16, 2019
Messages
30
I have a beefy server I want to use for both a NAS, and some virtual machines. I really want it to pass my graphics card as well. However, I have had trouble finding the right tool to do this.

1. Bare metal FreeNAS - the way most of you want me to do it, or you will get mad at me...
- GREAT for NAS setup & reliability
- VM side of this is very weak. I can find no way to pass PCI devices. I do need audio too. Doesnt seem to do either video nor audio passthrough.

2. ESXi base OS - You get mad at me to virtualize FreeNAS
- VMs are GREAT! Passes about anything you want. Audio & video included.
- I have had success configuring FreeNAS, but everyone tells me this is risky. I'm not debating that point. Just trying to find the best way to do this.

I have not tried Hyper-v, proxmox. Proxmox is supposed to be good with VMs, but the NAS side is all in linux. No fun gui's. So, it seems.

Any ideas?
 

Rod Martin

Dabbler
Joined
May 16, 2019
Messages
30
I revisited my ESXi configuration. I did a bare metal FreeNAS, created a pool, and a volume. I pulled the boot media, and replaced it with my ESXi media. I did a PCI device setup in my VM for the SATA controller, and it went to FreeNAS beautifully. I was even able to import the pool successfully! I would not consider this something I would recommend anyone to do, but this is all testing anyway, so it was an interesting discovery.

"Just because", I deleted that pool, and remade it. FreeNAS appeared to be quite happy with the disks that were available. Even SMART features were available. So, I do wonder, and ask if anyone has had luck using the Lewisburg controller in this manner, and can attest to its stability, etc.

When I actually do take this into "production", this is a secondary backup anyway. My primary data is on a very stable QNAP device. But, like anything, I want another layer of backup.

Is this a somewhat happy configuration for FreeNAS???

Thanks, all!

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Pitfrr

Wizard
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
1,523
I'm using ESXi and FreeNAS is running in a VM for my production server and I'm very happy with it.

The ESXi configuration looks good I'd say: 4vCPU is enough, 16GB of RAM, just make sure the RAM is reserved, the SATA controller passed through.
I don't know the Lewisburg controller... (using a LSI 9211 controller) but if you have direct access to the disks, I'd say that's fine. Getting SMART data through to FreeNAS is important. And FreeNAS needs to see the drive directly.
And if you use it as secondary backup server then it might be less critical and you can test/stress it for some time to see if it is stable.
 

Pitfrr

Wizard
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Feb 10, 2014
Messages
1,523
I'm also toying with GPU passthrough with this setup but this is completely independent of the FreeNAS VM.

I have a GPU (Nvidia K620) that I passed through to a VM, I was hoping to be able to experiment with a gaming VM but I had really crappy results (using remote desktop).
But from an ESXi perspective the GPU passthrough worked, the card was detected, it's just the graphical output over remote desktop for that VM which was not optimal.
 

Rod Martin

Dabbler
Joined
May 16, 2019
Messages
30
@Pitfrr

Yea, you really need your frame rates for games. I want it for transcoding purposes. You are subject to your network speed for screen refresh. If you plug a monitor direct into the graphics card, you should have some descent results. I'm not sure how good, though. But, you do need to be directly connected to the hardware to get your fps.
 

Pitfrr

Wizard
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
1,523
If you plug a monitor direct into the graphics card, you should have some descent results.
That was the next thing I'll be trying out. Although I don't like this solution much (because I don't know if I'll always be able to have the server at a decent cable distance)... And then I need video and USB cable...
But anyway it's fun to toy with. :smile:

I've also read about VDI (from vmware) but the license cost is not affordable just for home and fun usage! :-O
But still digging maybe I'll find other solutions.
 
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