HW Requirements for VMWare Setup

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Hi, I am looking to setup a VMWare rig to run the following five guest OS’s as VM’s :-

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (Domain Controller)
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (Domain Controller)
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (Member Server)
Windows Vista (client OS)
Windows XP Pro (client OS)

initially, plus other possible OS’s later. (This is for my studies for MCSA on W2K3 for which I am currently running OS’s on separate machines).

I am just wondering what success I may have in trying to run this setup with the following spec of machine :-

2.5GHz Pentium 4, socket 478, (Northwood core)
2GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
2 x 80GB hard drives
NVidia GeForec 4 MX 440 64MB RAM graphics adapter
300W PSU
Host OS : Win XP Pro + SP2

I have checked the system requirements for VMWare Workstation v6.0, and they state a minimum CPU speed of 733MHz and 2GB of RAM, though obviously the number of virtual machines running will be a consideration also.

The above machine will actually be an upgrade from a Celeron 1.8GHz/256MB RAM system, and will cost around £120-£150.

Question is it is worth making this upgrade to run the above VMWare setup, or should I be looking instead at buying a new Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad system (or AMD equivalent), ie. will it all run just a bit too slowly on the above system and therefore not be worth spending money on the upgrade.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

 

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Originally by: Rover977;

Question is it is worth making this upgrade to run the above VMWare setup, or should I be looking instead at buying a new Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad system (or AMD equivalent), ie. will it all run just a bit too slowly on the above system and therefore not be worth spending money on the upgrade.

In the long run it would be sensible to go for the Intel Core 2/Quad system or the AMD equivalent. The point however, with regards to running vmware is that both systems would be more than suffice.

 

Ok if those machines are all going to be running all at once then you will have problems cause even those specs wont handle all of them at once. So this is what i did.. i got and old pc - 500-700mhz and about 1gb of RAM - maybe a less - 512 and 256 modules is what i had actually on that i had XP as the host OS and it ran Server 2003 and XP as the guest OS at the same time then the rest - actually same as yours on my Main PC. Its important to know that each guest os requires its own RAM so usually add up all the RAM requirements of each guest and the host to see if you have enough RAM.

 

If you're going to buy new hardware make sure the CPU and chipset support Intel-VT or AMD-V.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

I was very dissapointed to find out my bran-spankin'-new HP with an Intel Core Duo and Vista 64-bit didn't support the feature set. My older AMD X2 4400+ does though.

 

does the chipset support a Core 2 Duo mate? all Core 2 Duos should have VT extensions (in fact some of the Pentium Ds support VT, a shame your Core Duo doesn't, but they didnt exactly stick around long

if your chipset supports C2D you can pick one up pretty cheaply

 

From Wikipedia article above:

Mine is a Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2 Ghz. I'm really not sure if it's the CPU, chipset or something HP disabled in the BIOS that's the problem though.

 

Not all of the C2D chips do actually support hardware virtualisation. Certainly the E4300-E4700's don't.

You can use the linke below then filter by 'Virtualisation Technology'

http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2558&sSpec=&OrdCode=

Some good info here also :- http://users.erols.com/chare/current_cpus.htm

I have read some discussions a while ago that suggested that some software based solutions can be faster when the hardware assistance is disabled.

My E4500 C2D doesn't support it, but seems to have no problem running several machines quickly but I have slapped extra ram in there (4GB) and optimised my setup quite a bit(OC'ed to 3.2Ghz). I have VT on my work laptop and once I had flashed the bios to enable the support for it I enabled it in Virtual PC 2007, but it didn't feel any different to me.

I would imagine it has a far more significant impact on a server running enterprise class virtualisation software than it would on a desktop system running something like Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation.

 

Yeah, if your motherboard doesn't support it, then you won't be able to make use of it. Some mobo's that do support it have an option to turn it on/off. I have also come across some (like on my work laptop, and my own laptop) that both support it, but don't have any mention of it in the BIOS.

 

Well, here's my rig running VMware:
AMD XP3200+ chip
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo (WHOPPING 400 FSB)
ATI 9800XT
3 gig ram
Five 500gig WD hard drives (I'm an MP3 junkie)

I can run up to 5 virtual machines (any combo server/workstation) without any issues.

 

Thanks guys for all responses, much appreciated. I’ve decided to run it on the rig I’ve currently got and see how it goes with the RAM/CPU upgrade, but when it comes to upgrading to a new system I’ll certainly be looking out for which CPUs support the virtualization extensions. I’ve found running w2k3 for cert study purposes has only required 256MB RAM and 7GB disk space per OS. The biggest demand on hardware will be running Vista with the Aero interface - for which I will need a better graphics card.

I’ll not get a C2D in this system as its only a socket 478 m/board, so I’ll have to settle for highest P4 that is compatible with it.

Many thanks again for all info.