I love the idea of using one uncostly computer to setup multiple operating systems as virtual machines and testing server and workstation operating systems. However, the biggest concern with this scenario is the sheer cost of the memory required.
Hard drive space is not an issue. With 1Tb drives dropping to sub 0 Usd, drive space for.Vhd or virtual hard drives isn't a problem. However, what ordinarily happens is you leave maybe 2Gb of space for the host machine. Now the host machine is the first operating ideas you setup on to the computer. For example I may setup Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 as my host operating system. It is 64 bit and very stable. Then I setup software such as the free version of Vmware server. This forms the basis for all of my other operating systems.
1gb
Each guest operating ideas then becomes a new computer. They can and are most useful when installed at the same time to see how they interact with each other. Say I want to see how to setup and test a network of 3 servers and 2 workstations, then I can setup 3 guest server operating systems and 2 client workstation operating systems and run them all at the same time... Assuming I have enough memory... This is the catch.
You do not need as much memory in a test scenario as you do in real life, but you also do not want the ideas to run like a dog either. For example if I had 2 domain controllers running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and gave them 1Gb of memory each, then installed an additional one version of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and transfer Server 2010 mailbox, hub transport and client access server roles and gave the virtual machine 6Gb of memory, and installed two machines running Windows 7 expert with 1Gb of memory each then I would need at least 12Gb of memory all up.
Some test environments may test even more servers and therefore need even more memory. Recently Kingmax and Kingston have come out with 2 x 4Gb Ddr3 memory modules for only 9.00 Usd. This means if my motherboard supports 4 memory slots, I can setup 16Gb of Ddr3 1333Mhz memory for my test server for only 0.00 Usd. An absolute agreement inspecting what you will or could be running with this memory.
I have seen some Gigabyte motherboards supporting 6 memory slots and capable of supporting 24Gb of memory. Now that would make a great virtual machine combined with these cheap large capacity 1Tb and 2Tb hard drives and a descent quad core Cpu!
Virtual machine Memory
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