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Suitable Machine to run VMs

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  • 22-04-2017 11:14pm
    #1
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Thought I'd ask here first. Looking for thoughts on an affordable machine dedicated solely to running a few VMs. I have my own laptop and I might just stick with Windows 10. I was thinking of an additional machine to run a few VMs for servers and development purposes I can access remotely on my home network.


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    #2
    liamo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,193 ✭✭✭liamo


    I bought a cheap Toshiba i3 laptop a few years ago (with Windows 10 now) and have since put in addition RAM (16GB) and an SSD. It is more than enough for running a few simultaneous Linux/BSD VMs very comfortably and the laptop itself is blazingly fast.

    So, you don't need to spend a fortune. You may simply need to upgrade your existing laptop (or not, as the case may be).

    But you do need to have an idea of what the requirements of your VMs will be. That's the real starting point.

    Hope this helps.


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    #3
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    It does indeed Liamo. I'll see what I can do with this machine first.


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    #4
    opus
    Registered Users Posts: 4,965 ✭✭✭opus


    Bit of memory & a CPU with virtualization features and you're off. I had a mini HPC cluster running on my PC at work for testing, one head node & two compute nodes without any problems.

    Lots of disk i/o by the VM's can grind your machine to a crawl of course so an SSD would be ideal.


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    #5
    matrim
    Registered Users Posts: 7,516 ✭✭✭matrim


    If possible I would get a second disk that you can run the VMs from. This will stop you from killing your main machine with disk IO


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    #6
    gearoid!
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭gearoid!


    First thing first, when considering an Intel CPU for Virtualization, go for CPU that supports Intel® VT and a compatible Mobo that has integrated graphics. 

    You can start looking here (VT-x):
    http://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&ExtendedPageTables=true&IntegratedGraphics=true

    For AMD based CPU (AMD-V):
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/GPU120AMDRVICPUsHyperVWin8.aspx

    A separate HDD should hold all your VMs. Also, consider bumping your RAM more than what you needed, for buffer. An Ubuntu 16.04 Server for development may require at least 1GB of RAM.


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