zero2dash
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 6,098
Our school workstations suck.
We've been running 2 VM's at once on these things and they're horrible.
E6800 running XP32 with 4GB of RAM. VM's on a USB2 2.5" HD.
We can only allocate 1GB of RAM to each VM otherwise the host computer chokes. (VM's of 7 Pro 32bit and Server 2008 Standard)
I'm thinking of getting a laptop to bring to school to use to host the VM's. Either way I'm planning on upgrading to 8GB of RAM to allocate at least 2-3GB of RAM to each VM.
I'm trying to spend as little as possible here....sub-$300 would be ideal.
Microcenter has an Acer laptop with a B815 Celeron (which is a SB) for $279.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382600
This is the cheapest laptop I see on their site that supports VT-x.
However ~
I'm wondering if even with the RAM, the CPU would then be the bottleneck here. Obviously it's a lower end....1.6GHz, only a dual core.
So I'm wondering....for VM purposes, should I go ahead and just move up to an i3?
Acer with an i3-2350M for $399. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382829
Again no matter which I get, I'm upgrading to 2x4GB of 1333.
For VM purposes though, would the CPU be a bottleneck?
I suppose my knee jerk reaction would be YES; with the i3 I could allow each VM to use 2 threads instead of 1. I just wonder where the biggest bottleneck would be....probably HD first (being that we have to use a portable drive)....if I get a laptop though I could store everything on it's drive instead.
Just looking to see what everyone thinks (or if anyone's bought a laptop specifically for hosting VM's). TIA
We've been running 2 VM's at once on these things and they're horrible.
E6800 running XP32 with 4GB of RAM. VM's on a USB2 2.5" HD.
We can only allocate 1GB of RAM to each VM otherwise the host computer chokes. (VM's of 7 Pro 32bit and Server 2008 Standard)
I'm thinking of getting a laptop to bring to school to use to host the VM's. Either way I'm planning on upgrading to 8GB of RAM to allocate at least 2-3GB of RAM to each VM.
I'm trying to spend as little as possible here....sub-$300 would be ideal.
Microcenter has an Acer laptop with a B815 Celeron (which is a SB) for $279.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382600
This is the cheapest laptop I see on their site that supports VT-x.
However ~
I'm wondering if even with the RAM, the CPU would then be the bottleneck here. Obviously it's a lower end....1.6GHz, only a dual core.
So I'm wondering....for VM purposes, should I go ahead and just move up to an i3?
Acer with an i3-2350M for $399. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382829
Again no matter which I get, I'm upgrading to 2x4GB of 1333.
For VM purposes though, would the CPU be a bottleneck?
I suppose my knee jerk reaction would be YES; with the i3 I could allow each VM to use 2 threads instead of 1. I just wonder where the biggest bottleneck would be....probably HD first (being that we have to use a portable drive)....if I get a laptop though I could store everything on it's drive instead.
Just looking to see what everyone thinks (or if anyone's bought a laptop specifically for hosting VM's). TIA