Home Server for 4 VMs and Host OS

seonken on 30/10/2016 - 13:26

Hi All,

I need your suggestion on below;

Need a desktop computer where I need to host 4 VMs for lab environment - will run all at once when needed. VMs will be, two linux, one windows server 2012 and one win 7. The host OS will be Ubuntu and I need all four VMs to talk to each other.

My current desktop is about 5 years old and not able to run one guest VM. I need your suggestion on which desktop should I get, config, CPU etc..

Does anyone have a current setup like this, can they suggest how to best set this one up?

Regards,
S

Computing

Comments

  • scupper on 30/10/2016 - 13:34

    Get an i7 cpu and 16Gb of ram or more.

    • cheesecactus on 30/10/2016 - 18:54

      Heck, a xeon might be more appropriate

  • apple2016 on 30/10/2016 - 16:40

    It would be ideal if you could get a workstation. But new ones are very expensive.
    I am using one similar to this. I have increased the ram to 24 gb. Again I bought this used from eBay/ gumtree. It has been running fine for 3 yrs now.

  • enzioFirenze on 30/10/2016 - 19:31

    You'll be better off with a Xeon with at least 8/10 cores and around 32GB of RAM.

  • Diji1 on 30/10/2016 - 19:51
    +1

    Firstly I'd use Proxmox as the host OS instead of Ubuntu but if Ubuntu is what you use then so be it. Proxmox if you don't know is a barebone hypervisor that can run Windows VMs and linux VM or containers from the same interface and will mean you aren't running a whole OS with VMs inside.

    Anyhow you need to figure out roughly what resources each VM requires in terms of CPU, RAM and storage and write it down:

    CPU: figure out how many cores each VM will need and add together.

    RAM: figure out how much RAM and add together.

    STORAGE: figure out etc.

    Don't forget to add the resources that the host requires as well.

    When choosing CPU:

    Important: Whatever CPU you choose it must have VT-d extensions or your VM performance will be poor - could be why your desktop is slow with VMs. Hyperthreaded CPUs will have double the number of virtual cores to allocate to virtual machines!

    When choosing storage:
    running multiple VMs on a fast SSD is recommended, sharing spinning hard drives between operating systems bogs everything down real quick. If spinning disks are being used try to allocate one VM per disk.

    When choosing RAM:
    keep in mind you start hitting the swap file when you run out of RAM and that is going to further compound any disk issues you might have and slow things down again.

  • seonken on 30/10/2016 - 20:18

    Thanks guys.

    I shall keep this info in mind when getting new system.

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