Question is geared towards orchestrating my family data.
I have an underutilized workstation and I am in quandary of whether I should build a separate server for my family data/vm’s or use my workstation for everything at home.
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I play games to relax on Windows 10 Pro (some games are NOT available in Linux)
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I use Pop_OS and Windows 10 Pro for work (although because of Tom’s videos I will no longer use Windows 10 for work - all open source software available)
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I use approximately 8~10 VM’s per day
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I have 20TB of data strewn about (USB flash drives, hard disks) and keeps growing…with photos,movies,videos of my children, etc…
My ideal scenario would be consolidation to minimize expenses:
a) My wife has her own laptop but it’s very olde and her Windows 10 system is a bit of a …nightmare with old hardware.
b) We both have lots of data that we share but we do it by plugging in our respective USB drives
c) I am using Plex for movies (almost 90% full on TB drives and NVME’s)
Going forward I’ve considered the following:
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Procure an LSI card to max out throughput from six or eight 12TB SATA drives (not SAS as my home is not enterprise grade)
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Upgrade home switch to 10gig
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Install a 2nd GPU on workstation - 10gig NIC ready
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Install Unraid or FreeNAS?
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Manage plex movies, vm’s, data, and a windows VM for wife (GPU passthrough not required as wife does not play any games)
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Manage personal workstation: (Windows 10 Pro) will be wiped out and install Pop_OS VM as host. Create a VM inside Pop_OS VM for Windows games (GPU passthrough). OR
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Manage personal workstation: (Windows 10 Pro) will be wiped out and install Pop_OS VM as host. Create a separate VM for Windows games (GPU passthrough). KVM Switch?
Any input would be enormously appreciated!
Cheers,
Huge Yeti
All I would add is setup your NAS however you like but also budget for the backup ! 10gig networking still seems to be expensive to me, gig networking seems to work well for 20 years and is pretty cheap. Having a machine running vms with fast processor and lots of ram would also probably be handy, leave the NAS for sharing files.
Having built out my network, I’m glad I went with a 48-port switch (which wasn’t that much more than a 24 port), you may find out later you need more ports than you imagined ! You might want to also consider PoE on the switch if it isn’t going to cost much more.
I see. So your solution is NOT to mix my workstation with a NAS.
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Workstation would be exclusive for work and games (Load Linux for host and GPU passthrough for windows VM) . No unraid/proxmox/freenas
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Build a separate server for NAS for file serving only (choose flavor of NAS OS)
What 24 port POE switch do you have? Netgear?
Absolutely ! When something goes wrong, and it will, you will have a mess if it’s all one box.
I use 2 QNAP NAS boxes generally they just work, are small, quiet and moderately priced. It’s ok as long as I just want to store files, I’ve had issues when I want to host containers, run virtualisation, bla bla … Other things are now hosted on a separate box running Proxmox.
I made a mistake buying the Netgear GS110TP poe switch, it’s 8 poe ports plus 2 SFP modules but the modules are freaking expensive ! My Netgear 48 port GS748 hasn’t got PoE but I could have bought single switch if I knew how much the GS110TP (£170) would ultimately cost me 
The GUI on Netgear switches are terrible, but once they are configured you never have to look at them again.
I should add I have the QNAP mostly because they have IP camera software that just works. If I didn’t then I would go the freenas route if I could find a small enough unit.
Agreed. I suppose I’ve always had the home role of “Admin/tech-support/architect/on-prem-hosting” from one workstation. I need to separate these tasks correctly and avoid future mishaps consolidated in one endpoint.
And yes SFP modules are expensive but I can’t justify the install for them right now, although I do have a Microtik router that I use for lab purposes (one SFP port available).
Thanks Neogrid.
Cheers m8.