Using Unraid To Host Dedicated Game Servers SPX Labs

What is the difference between Virtual Machine and Container?

There are many benefits to containers, but the most important is that they are smaller in size and can be very lightweight because they don’t require an operating system guest (like Windows 10/Ubuntu). Virtual Machines are typically equipped with an entire operating platform and require more hardware resources. Virtual Machines also usually require to lock in a minimum number of virtual CPU cores (vCores) and a minimum amount of RAM. For instance, a Windows 10 virtual machine may need a minimum of 2 vCores and 2GB of RAM just for the operating system itself, then additional resources will need to be added to run a game server like Space Engineers. You can allow containers to use system resources as needed. This means that you don't need to reserve cores/threads or RAM for them. The more people join the server, it will use more resources to compensate for the additional work load. If you choose, you can limit the number vCores or RAM that you allow containers to use.

When is it best to use a container

In my opinion you should always seek to run a game server in a container whenever possible. This will increase the system resources available for other applications, virtual machines, containers, and processes.

When to use Virtual Machines?

If you don't have a container or are more comfortable setting one up, you can use the "Desktop Experience" to create a virtual machine. Space Engineers can run in a container but it does not have the same functionality as its virtual machine counterpart. I use Space Engineers in a Windows 10 Virtual Machine because it is so easy to do.

Maximizing Game Server Performance

Unraid 6.9 gives us a new ability to really fine tune how well our game servers perform. Unraid 6.9 introduces something very cool called Multiple Pools.

Separate Storage to Store Caching, VMs and Containers

You can use the same storage pool for your containers and virtual machines to cache data written to shareable files. This means when a large copy to a share is taking place, performance in those other applications may suffer. While this may not be apparent for most home users, it is noticeable for power users and multi-user environments. The cost of resource contention can be more evident and obvious.

You can now create multiple storage pools to use for specific functions.

This link will teach you everything about multi pools. This feature is important because we can very easily separate our game servers from our array and from our cache. We can literally dedicate hardware specifically for our gaming servers which will make every ones gaming experience much more enjoyable.

Storage allocation

Because it runs Windows 10 and Space Engineers server software, My Space Engineers virtual machine is kept on a dedicated NVMe disk. This means that the virtual computer can read and/or write to the drive as many times as it needs without being affected by any other application, virtual machine, container, or program.

For now, all of my gaming containers run in my cache because they are extremely lightweight and there is at most 5 people in one game server at a time. One thing I could change in the future if I wanted, is to put all containers in their own pool or just specific ones, like Minecraft. My Minecraft server is heavily modified and if my friends were playing Rust while I was playing Minecraft, then there might have been some performance losses as both servers read from and write to the cache frequently.

Remote Access to Your Server

Game crashes while you're away Maybe the game stopped working? The community has your back. You can set up a VPN in your Unraid OS to allow you to access the WebUI from almost any device.

Wireguard is a good choice. OpenVPN can be used as a backup. There are many videos and guides online that will help you set it up.

Server unreachable via VPN? that's how to be me With Unraid's free service My Servers, you can check if your server online. My Servers will allow you to backup your USB Flash Drive, in case the device dies.