Thank You, I am very surprised that 4GB of memory could handle it, I expected to need more for 5 virtual machines. This is great, let me go price something out, I should be able to get this bought this week and get going with real hardware.
If 8GB is pretty cheap, you could go 8GB, but with the specs you laid out, you don't need a whole lot of memory I think (a 286 will have at most 1 MB). So unless the other systems you are currently using use (not just 'have', but really use) a whole lot of memory, 4 or 8GB is plenty.
VMware ESX/ESXi uses a balloon driver for the memory; a VM only uses as much memory on the system as the VM needs. The amount of memory you assign is really the cap you set for that VM. So if you check your 4 systems and check their average memory consumption, add them up together, maybe add an extra 25-50% (for peak times), you'll have a general idea of how much memory is enough for you.
Dev Mgr
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9.3K Posts
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October 13th, 2009 07:00
If you get a T310 or T110 with a raid 1 and 4GB, you can handle the same load you're currently running.
themikey
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October 13th, 2009 11:00
Thank You, I am very surprised that 4GB of memory could handle it, I expected to need more for 5 virtual machines. This is great, let me go price something out, I should be able to get this bought this week and get going with real hardware.
Dev Mgr
4 Operator
•
9.3K Posts
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October 14th, 2009 09:00
If 8GB is pretty cheap, you could go 8GB, but with the specs you laid out, you don't need a whole lot of memory I think (a 286 will have at most 1 MB). So unless the other systems you are currently using use (not just 'have', but really use) a whole lot of memory, 4 or 8GB is plenty.
VMware ESX/ESXi uses a balloon driver for the memory; a VM only uses as much memory on the system as the VM needs. The amount of memory you assign is really the cap you set for that VM. So if you check your 4 systems and check their average memory consumption, add them up together, maybe add an extra 25-50% (for peak times), you'll have a general idea of how much memory is enough for you.