Any cons turning my desktop PC into an unraid server?

Operating Systems & Open Source
1

Hello people.
First time posting. First of all I rarely use my desktop at all.

I was thinking about turning it into a NAS / occasionally gaming through unraid. Being able to do most of my work on my laptop and storing all my things on my big tower. Are there any tips, tricks or nice to know things before I start? I should have the knowhow to set it op.

Also if you use a setup like this, how do you like it?

Best wishes

Anders S.

2

there’s no problem of doing that; just keep in mind:

  • desktops use more power, and generate more heat.
  • raid? if there’s no raid setup you must be prepared someday your hdd’s will die.
  • game performance on unraid: Don’t expect great things from it… RTP ain’t that great yet - especially if you are going through any wifi network.

as my tip for you:
Don’t put it in dark, enclosed place - make sure it has air ventilation. If its too loud for you change fans, and maybe use AIO.
If you still want to game using RTTP (unraid and similar technologies/softwares for remote gaming etc), get a decent 1GB cat6 cable and decent network card or just get external gpu box, and use that instead of going around; you may not need that nas at all if you get external drive enclosures… not to mention your security will get compromised if you use wifi.

how i do things on my home setup

Here’s what i do: (my setup is little bit different, but contains same idea - just had couple more dough, and years to organize myself)
I have a rack with 2 servers (2xe5-2670 768GB ram kind) running opensuse; that loads fully, and runs KVM’s from memory only.
Other one is just Ryzen gaming station. The rack is placed in my closet, and is cooled down by water loop, and exchange air from outside.

How does my use look like?
Well i have tied down, and extended 4 HDMI, 2 DisplayPorts cables, and 2 usb hubs with switch (its a button that’s switching where is my usb hub, mouse and keyboard is connected.) (HDMI’s are mainly used for my Rift, and Projector setup, but also connect to KVM with 780ti, while DP ports connect to Fury-X on ryzen ‘server’); The ryzen machine runs off nvme ssd, while dual e5-2670 runs from 2 x 4TB Seagates in Raid1, and 2x 256GB SSD’s also in Raid1 which are reserved for kvm host.

My game performance in relative in kvm’s sometimes 10-5% performance loss vs bare, sometimes little bit faster… i mainly use my ryzen to game-on recently.

3

cool!

Thanks for the reply. You have alot of good things to keep in mind.

I think you changed my perspective on my future setup.

Have a great day!

4

How would unraid be better than making the pc a nas and just dual-boot into windows for gaming if you feel like it?