Boss just gave me the green light to upgrade my desktop after a long period of suffering. Anyways, I need a good system that will handle virtualization like no other and I need it in a workstation form.
I'd like a Linux based system with the ability to virtualize via VMware and Xen multiple operating systems on top of the host at the same time and still have plenty of power to compile and do the rest of my normal "Tasks".
What is the best processor for virtualizing in this manner? I'm personally leaning towards a Quad-Core Q6600 Intel processor though I don't know how much better the Quad-Core Xeon Procs are in terms of Virtualizing. I spent a few minutes on Newegg building this system https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersio [...] Title=WORK. How do you think it will handle virtualization? Currently on my own personal computer I run two raptors stripped together and that seems to greatly improve disk IO for vmware and xen. Though i've never really attempted virtualizing more than one OS at a time due to system limitations. SATA disk IO might not be fast enough for that, might need SCSI?
Any suggestions are thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance =).
Nick
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"Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising everytime we fall." - Confucius
Bellsouth Free Since 10/05 - To Hell With Bellsouth
I'm no expert on VMware but I think the amount of ram is more important than the kind of hard drive. You are going to seriously want 8 to 16 Gb if you want to run multiple operating systems and still be able to compile stuff in the background.
Get a cheap video card (like a 8400). Also get a GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R. Use the money you saved from these on more RAM. This motherboard supports up to 8GB RAM. It also has RAID, but no PCI-X. Imo, you won't really need the PCI-X slot. SATA I/O performance is also good.
