ESXI Help..Rebuild or Different Settings?

wildgene789

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Dec 24, 2008
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Hey guys,

Right now im running ESXI 5.1 and i seem to be having performance problems. First i will list my specs then I will list my problems.

Specs:
AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX AM3+
16GB 1600Mhz DDR3 Ram
1TB drive 7200RPM as data store

Rest of drives are mapped to a VM which i will explain lower
2x3TB WD Green Drives
2x2TB WD Drives
1x2.5TB Drive

Software Setup:
3VMS
1 Windows 7 64 bit just for playing on when im at work or just want to do something overnight without leaving desktop on
1 Windows 7 64 bit for Plex and Utorrent
1 Windows Server 2012 Essentials for AD/Web interface/and all the other goodies

On the Windows Server 2012 Essentials I have a software called Drive Bender which allows me to take all my extra drives and pool them together and present them as one. Its very useful.

Now onto the problem
I seem to have performance issues with this computer. When i login to the windows 7 machine it lags alot and I feel it should run alot smoother. Now theres a part i left out. The configureation of all of them. I set them all to have 4GB ram which with 16GB ram shouldnt be a problem. BUT the cpu I set them all to have 4 cores. I did this because a buddy of mine was telling me that ESXI is smart enough to distribute the power evenly but i feel like maybe he was wrong and that was the problem. What do you guys think?

Solutions:
I was thinking about upgrading my processor to one of the 8Core processors since i always have an AM3+ motherboard. ORRR I was thinking about buying an Intel i5 Processor with a new motherboard that support 32GB ram. This same friend told me that the I5 outperformes the 8core processors any day. Let me know what you think please.
 

BuddiLuva

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Aug 17, 2012
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First I'll start off by saying the 965 is no Xeon lol.

But your friend is correct, it does distribute the load evenly, therefore that shouldn't be the problem, unless they're all running at 50+% CPU all the time.

I would make sure that you have VMware tools installed, as that makes everything jittery, or re install it.

If that doesn't help give each VM only 2 cores.

And your friend is wrong, in a VM scenario, the 8 core processor smashes the i5. (Presuming this is about the FX 8350)
 

wildgene789

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Trust me i want a Xeon but the mother board and ram would just cost too much.

I want to run more VM's then this but i also want this to work better lol. I will check the Vm tools.

Do you think an FX8350 would be a noticeable difference?

Plex requires alot of power for trans-coding so that could be part of problem.
 

BuddiLuva

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The FX 8350 would do great.

Do you have that lagginess in all virtual machines, like the mouse is jittery?

If the mouse doesnt flow smooth and you try to move an explorer window around and it is jittery, that definitely means that you need to install VMware tools.

All virtual machines are like that until you install VMware Tools. To do this go to your Vcenter, open the console on the virtual machine, on the top left do VM>Guest>Install VMware Tools
 

wildgene789

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yea i already have the tools installed. Its the first thing i do or the VM is unbearable lol.

By laggy i mean for example. In 1 VM i have windows 7 with all the Aero stuff disabled for performance. I have the Esxi Client on there and well when i was switching tabs in the VM it would hesitate to respond and lag up.