The difference? Hyper-V in Win 10 and Hyper-V server 2016...

MrGuvernment

Fully [H]
Joined
Aug 3, 2004
Messages
21,770
I have found myself in a situation that is just frustrating me at this point and i want to move on and just have a system that bloody works!

Got a system built from Natex combo:

  • Intel S2600CP board
  • 2 x E5 2670 v2
  • 128G ECC Reg DDR3

and other goodies. (RX 550 / SSD's / 4x 2TB Toshiba drives / LSI 9240-8i)

The original plan was to do GPU pass though using ESXi and visualize my home main rig and then also have a nice lab to play around in since I.T is my job, but, ESXi 6.5.0 (upto d release) is so flaky for pass through it just annoyed me. I recently bought a RX 550 as I was informed that AMD fixed their power issues and the card would stop freezing ESXi on reboot , but that is not the case, still freezes and crashes ESXi upon restarting or even doing a shutdown of the OS, not something I want to have to deal with. Even passing through QLogic Dell branded dual port NIC's cause ESXi to hard freeze and reboot.

Didn't want to user Hyper-V because RemoteFX was not what i was looking for, i wanted as close to bare metal performance as possible, as well MS has not yet implemented USB pass through and I didn't want to spend money on dongles and more gear.

XenServer does not do USB pass through either...

unRaid - had never used it and wanted to use ESXi or Hyper-V as that is what i use at work and wanted to use it as the base for my home lab, as well coughing up $60 for a hyper-visor wasn't in my plans and that also limits me to 6 storage devices and I have 9 right now.

So with that, AMD wont let you install their full software suites under Windows Server and I have tried my darndess to get it to install, I can get the base drivers installed fine, but nothing else beyond that.

Main question then is, what is the difference between running Hyper-V from Windows 10 Ent. vs running Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V installed? Features that I would lose out on, if any?
 
Last edited:
Lack of remote Hyper-V management (you'll have to RDP into the Windows 10 box to get to Hyper-V manager) and clustering are the big ones. Other than that I don't think there's a difference.
 
I could live with that. Would Hyper-V and VMs still run after the user in Windows 10 logs off?

I may just install Win 10 Ent. on this server and use it as day to day and run the VM's via Hyper-V in Windows 10 instead of dealing with all the headaches is my thought
 
Last edited:
Came across this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/

Differences between Hyper-V on Windows and Hyper-V on Windows Server
There are some features that work differently in Hyper-V on Windows than they do in Hyper-V running on Windows Server.

The memory management model is different for Hyper-V on Windows. On a server, Hyper-V memory is managed with the assumption that only the virtual machines are running on the server. In Hyper-V on Windows, memory is managed with the expectation that most client machines are running software on host in addition to running virtual machines. For example, a developer might be running Visual Studio as well as several virtual machines on the same computer.

There are some features included in Hyper-V on Windows Server that are not included in Hyper-V on Windows. These include:

  • Virtualizing GPUs using RemoteFX
  • Live migration of virtual machines from one host to another
  • Hyper-V Replica
  • Virtual Fiber Channel
  • SR-IOV networking
  • Shared .VHDX
 
Use ESXI 5.5?

I had considered that option, but due to my work i am often using the latest and greatest so like to keep as up to date as i can. I wish VMWare would fix their 6.5 pass through stuff they seemed to break.
 
I played around with Hyper-V in a lab for about 5 years of production usage. While it works OK, tbh the grass is not any greener on the other side, I found apps always lacking behind in support. Usually, end up waiting for the hyper-v implementations like for backup software. In any case OP, use Windows Server 2016 if you can.
 
Came across this:

There are some features included in Hyper-V on Windows Server that are not included in Hyper-V on Windows. These include:

  • Virtualizing GPUs using RemoteFX

This one is actually not true. You can use Windows 10 Pro as the HyperV host, but you HAVE to use Windows 10 Enterprise as the hyperV guest. Microsoft only lets you enable remoteFX in the client if it's Windows 10 Enterprise.

That said performance is decent. It's not going to be bare metal, but if you read the forums no one has a long term working solution that allows bare metal GPU passthrough to a VM while still keeping a stable system. It just doesn't work consistently. If you really want to use it to game, just install Windows 10 on it, use that to game with, and then run whatever you want as a hypervisor on top of Windows. You can use Virtualbox, VMware workstation, or hyperV, and maybe even another product that I'm not aware of. But remoteFX is exactly that, you can remote into the VM not only from the host, but any other system that can run Windows. So if you have a garbage laptop with integrated graphics, you can let the server side do the heavy lifting and it will allow you to play stuff on that system which doesn't run on the laptop.

For what it's worth, unRAID is probably the best implementation of GPU passthrough that I've seen. It is somewhat easy to configure, and it does in fact work. But the security of it is non existent, and the way they handle the storage is severely lacking despite that being why it was invented. It is fine for a home user who just wants an easier version of JBOD, but it definitely isn't anything to compete with a real storage solution.
 
If you want as close to BM as possible, use Server 2016 core. No GUI installed, so it uses the bare minimum resources. You'll need remote management software (or Powershell) on another machine to manage it.
 
Last edited:
I've seen a few YouTube videos where they were able to run up ESXi (whatever version) and do a GPU passthru (most success using NVidia after a simple hack) to the Windows VM. Any reason this won't work?

I'm thinking of doing exactly this once I get my homelab setup. I want a stupid-simple micro-stx computer at my desk for 90% of all my menial tasks and a separate set of servers/VM workstations that handle my CAD/rendering/gaming/etc. that I would just remote in to.
 
I've seen a few YouTube videos where they were able to run up ESXi (whatever version) and do a GPU passthru (most success using NVidia after a simple hack) to the Windows VM. Any reason this won't work?

I'm thinking of doing exactly this once I get my homelab setup. I want a stupid-simple micro-stx computer at my desk for 90% of all my menial tasks and a separate set of servers/VM workstations that handle my CAD/rendering/gaming/etc. that I would just remote in to.


its flakey at best and often results in the ESXi hard restarting.
 
I played around with Hyper-V in a lab for about 5 years of production usage. While it works OK, tbh the grass is not any greener on the other side, I found apps always lacking behind in support. Usually, end up waiting for the hyper-v implementations like for backup software. In any case OP, use Windows Server 2016 if you can.
With a free version of ESXi available, I really don't see why anyone would want to use Hyper-V (if cost is the reason).
 
With a free version of ESXi available, I really don't see why anyone would want to use Hyper-V (if cost is the reason).

Technet subscription makes hyper-v virtually free, compared to shelling out thousands for esxi licenses.
 
Technet subscription makes hyper-v virtually free, compared to shelling out thousands for esxi licenses.

technet doesnt exist anymore so not the case and Hyper-V is free anyways with out any other subscription needed, but if you plan to run Windows Server, you paying for a least 2 VM licenses with that 1 free Hyper-V. So your still dishing out cash.

ESXi free works for many people unless you need clusters and such.
 
Personally I love Hyper-V as I grew up supporting Windows.

I ran three Hyper-V hosts on Server 2012 and recently migrated to Server 2016. It is easy to manage, and works seamlessly with a windows ecosystem. I especially like how much easier it is to work with VM files, disks, etc. because it is for the most part normal Windows file systems, disks, etc.
I also find Hyper-V to make for a better all in one host solution due to this ease of management.

I ran ESXi for quite awhile as well as XenServer and landed on Hyper-V.

As far as desktop vs. server. Frankly I found a lot of quirks to go away as I moved to dedicated Hyper-V hosts.
 
technet doesnt exist anymore so not the case and Hyper-V is free anyways with out any other subscription needed, but if you plan to run Windows Server, you paying for a least 2 VM licenses with that 1 free Hyper-V. So your still dishing out cash.

ESXi free works for many people unless you need clusters and such.

I'm not sure where you got that it doesn't exist - as of last year we had paid MSDN subs. Hyper-V is free if you use the CLI only version - if you want a full blown server 2016 Datacenter instance, you have to shell out $$$. What we did was license each individual hypervisor with keys from MSDN, and then use AVMA keys to activate the VMs against Hyper-V. It saved us a ton of money for lab purposes. We used MSDN for more than just Windows licenses.

Anyway YMMV - if it fits your needs you can go with Hyper-V, and if not go with VMWare. There's little if any performance difference afaik, it should only come down to cost and supporting the infrastructure.
 
I'm not sure where you got that it doesn't exist - as of last year we had paid MSDN subs. Hyper-V is free if you use the CLI only version - if you want a full blown server 2016 Datacenter instance, you have to shell out $$$. What we did was license each individual hypervisor with keys from MSDN, and then use AVMA keys to activate the VMs against Hyper-V. It saved us a ton of money for lab purposes. We used MSDN for more than just Windows licenses.

Anyway YMMV - if it fits your needs you can go with Hyper-V, and if not go with VMWare. There's little if any performance difference afaik, it should only come down to cost and supporting the infrastructure.


MSDN and Technet were 2 different things, technet was killed off, MSDN does still exist.

If you can afford MSDN, go nuts, but it was nothing like technet for $200. I wish i could get an MSDN sub for my lab, but now i settle for 180 day trials as needed.
 
I'm not sure where you got that it doesn't exist - as of last year we had paid MSDN subs. Hyper-V is free if you use the CLI only version - if you want a full blown server 2016 Datacenter instance, you have to shell out $$$. What we did was license each individual hypervisor with keys from MSDN, and then use AVMA keys to activate the VMs against Hyper-V. It saved us a ton of money for lab purposes. We used MSDN for more than just Windows licenses.

Anyway YMMV - if it fits your needs you can go with Hyper-V, and if not go with VMWare. There's little if any performance difference afaik, it should only come down to cost and supporting the infrastructure.


Technet was killed a couple years back do to assholes abusing. MSDN is ~2-3k for the lowest package, which is a LOT more than the 200$/year technet was.

Also, yes there is a free version of HyperV server, even with the GUI. The problem is that does not license any of the guest VMs running on the host. If you run Server standard, it includes licenses for 2 guest Server VMs, as long as the host has no other roles but HyperV. If you run datacenter, it covers the license for all Server VMs running on the host.


MSDN and Technet were 2 different things, technet was killed off, MSDN does still exist.

If you can afford MSDN, go nuts, but it was nothing like technet for $200. I wish i could get an MSDN sub for my lab, but now i settle for 180 day trials as needed.

Take a look at action pack. About double what technet costed, but includes Azure credits and O365 licenses etc.
 
Back
Top