Rig for Virtualbox Use

[steelodon]

I want to run Virtualbox on a new system with possibly a database running through a VM for testing. What would be a good basic setup I could start with? I don't want anything too expensive. Thanks.

 

[lopri]

Go to a Bestbuy or Microcenter and pick a Dell/HP with an i5. $500~600 should be plenty for a whole system.

 

[Icecold]

If you go Intel, make sure you check ark.intel.com and at least verify the model supports VT-x; I would prefer one that supports VT-x and VT-D.

Are you just going to be running one VM? Also, will the PC be used for anything else processor intensive, if so, mostly single threaded or mostly multi threaded programs? If you were running the database natively on a machine rather than through a VM, what type of machine specs would you expect it to require?

We can give much better responses once we have answers to those questions. In general, though, AMD is definitely not a bad choice if virtualization is a primary task. My Phenom 2 X6 with 16GB of ram handles plenty of VM's without issue, and any AMD chip from the last several years should support AMD-V. If you have a microcenter nearby you can get an AMD Phenom II X6 1045T with free motherboard for $100, and I can't imagine you could beat that with anything else for anywhere near $100 for virtualization. If you don't have a microcenter, I would still look at AMD as a lot of Intel processors don't support VT-D, and virtualization is one place where AMD usually provides a much better price / performance ratio.(i3 2100 may beat a lot(all?) AMD processors in single threaded game benchmarks, but picking an i3 2100 which doesn't even support VT-D over Phenom x6 for something highly threaded such as video encoding or running a lot of VM's would not be a wise choice. And they're about the same price, except the motherboard for the AMD processor will be cheaper.) Phenom X6 should provide ROUGHLY similar performance to an i5 2500 or Ivy Bridge equivalent(not 2500k, as that doesn't support VT-d) for Virtualization, better than the i5 in some cases, possibly worse in others, but for a much cheaper price.

 

[blckgrffn]

SSD, plenty of ram, a CPU that supports virtualization.

And you're good. 🙂

 

[TheRyuu]

If we're strictly talking cpu's here (given the sub-forum) then I'd say VT-x/EPT are the big ones and generally speaking the newer the CPU the better the performance is going to be in the VM (well, newer cpu's are almost always generally faster but what I'm talking about is stuff like context switches with VT-x will take a lot less cycles in say Nehalem versus the original Core2's with VT-x or whenever that came about all else being equal).

Since price seems like an issue just buy what you can afford. Hyperthreading is good for virtual machines (it's good for a lot of things really) but only if we're comparing two cpu's with the same number of real cores (4C/4T vs 4C/8T). As far as AMD vs Intel with regards to VM's I can't say I really know enough about it to be able to chose between the two, as someone else had pointed out more specifics about the workload may help us make a more educated guess. I personally like Intel but I'm sure there are many good deals to be had on the AMD side since price is indeed an issue for you.

For something which sounds at least like it's going to be used just for a bit of messing around I don't really see VT-d being make or break (but then again I'm not exactly sure how VT-d works or how it would apply to what you're doing, it may actually be extremely useful I just don't know much about it).

I know VirtualBox is free and all but so is VMWare Player. Granted vmware player only supports up to 4 logical cpu's in the vm and I think is non-commercial only (not exactly sure but it sort of sounds up your ally (you mention "for testing")). All that being said, VMWare Player is going to be better than VBox is basically every way possible (Player uses the same stuff as workstation & company, the only restriction I think is on the use and the number of virtual cpu's).

 

[lopri]

The OP mentioned:

- A virtual machine (singular)
- Database testing

Neither hyperthreading nor AMD-V/VT-d provides benefit. If anything having a separate physical drive for the VM and having enough memory would be the best move he could make for performance.

Edit: I meant IOMMU which is AMD equivalent of Intel VT-d.

 

[tynopik]

anything+SSD

 

[BrightCandle]

The OP mentioned:

- A virtual machine (singular)
- Database testing

Neither hyperthreading nor AMD-V/VT-d provides benefit. If anything having a separate physical drive for the VM and having enough memory would be the best move he could make for performance.

Edit: I meant IOMMU which is AMD equivalent of Intel VT-d.

Databases are regularly IO bound. Its very relevant that the VM have access to the technology that improves the performance of such instructions. Databases also benefit from lots of RAM. Databases can also happily use many cores so 6/8 cores is beneficial.

Depending on how heavy the usage is you might consider an SSD, lots of RAM, Intel 2011 or Bulldozer all along with it all VT-d/IOMMU.

 

[blckgrffn]

An SSD is going to provide the level of I/O needed, no need to mess with VT-D/IOMMU.

 

[BrightCandle]

An SSD is going to provide the level of I/O needed, no need to mess with VT-D/IOMMU.

VT-D and IOMMU is about performance of IO. The technology allows the interrupts to be remapped such that the device can be accessed more directly. Its a technology developed specifically for high IO virtual machines, ie databases being the prime candidate.

Its not required, but given the choice I would buy a CPU with the capabilities because it will perform better. The CPU overhead on full SSD transfers will likely dampen the benefits of an SSD, especially with every IO going through the virtual machine.

 

[blckgrffn]

VT-D and IOMMU is about performance of IO. The technology allows the interrupts to be remapped such that the device can be accessed more directly. Its a technology developed specifically for high IO virtual machines, ie databases being the prime candidate.

Its not required, but given the choice I would buy a CPU with the capabilities because it will perform better. The CPU overhead on full SSD transfers will likely dampen the benefits of an SSD, especially with every IO going through the virtual machine.

I suppose, but I can tell you from experience that even a cheapo SSD is ridiculously capable for VMs and adding the additional overhead of direct hardware access to the VM config is not worth it for basically anyone.

And in the enterprise space, well. Yeah. Thousands of VMs hitting tiny amounts SSD through VMFS/whatever file system under through NFS works pretty darn fantastic.

Keep that baby in its container, keep it easily transferable to a new rig, etc. Tying it to hardware unnecessarily is silly. (IMHO)

I wouldn't base my CPU decision on whether or not it has direct i/o capabilities, especially for the type of user who is going to be using Virtual Box. Which isn't to say it isn't nice to have, but making sure your CPU/Motherboard/I/O device (raid controller) and hypervisor of choice all play nice is asking to spend a lot of time shopping/troubleshooting/hacking when you could be doing whatever it is you built your VM for.

 

[lopri]

You guys are arguing over something that doesn't help the OP at all. (although blckgrffn does have a better idea) First of all, no client-level virtualization supports IOMMU/VT-d yet. Windows 7 did not support at all initially, and added some support with SP1. I don't use VirtualBox, but I highly doubt it has any support for IOMMU/VT-d.

Everything on the desktop level currently is memory virtualization. You will have to go to recent development in hypervisors to see the IOMMU/VT-d implementation (which is at its infancy).

SSD does help certainly as do more (enough) memory for the database and app he's going to run. But that has nothing to do with IOMMU.

 

[cantholdanymore]

First of all, no client-level virtualization supports IOMMU/VT-d yet.

I was looking for this for quite some time

 

[holden j caufield]

you'll want something that will do nested vms that has made a lot of testing very easy.

 

[grimpr]

SSD, plenty of ram, a CPU that supports virtualization.

And you're good. 🙂

Thanks for the wisdom BlackGriffin, i want to build a cheap (read celeron g530) vmware box running windows 7 server and ubuntu server, which solution you propose best?, bare metal with esxi or desktop vmware/virtualbox on windows 7? I want to try esxi but didnt persuaded myself enough for trying it, i guess an SSD will help running smoothly windows & linux at the same time ontop of esxi in that little celeron box. 🙂

 

[blckgrffn]

I use an i3, 8GB of ram on an H61 board and ESXi for my "production" vms at my home. ESXi is quick to install and easy to setup, I would give it a shot first and if you don't like it, deal with the more time consuming setups on the other platforms.

Only thing to watch out for is whether or not your onboard nic is supported. You can either look it up online or take the "easy" way out and just order one of these with your components:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106033

You will never regret having a good nic for VMs, even if you end up running one of the other platforms.

Oh yeah, SSD is a super-awesome investment for a virtualization box. I had 12 students simultaneously build server 2008 VMs from an iso file on the same SSD (a samsung 470 128GB) and the builds were logged into within 10 minutes. One student whom I dedicated a Seagate spinner to had the build take over twice as long with the same ISO file. So, a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 will perform even better.

I guess, other than that, I would encourage you to get a motherboard with four ram slots if budget allows. Start with a minimum of 8GB of ram. I would also seriously consider buying just one 8GB stick now so that you can achieve high density as budget allows in the future.

Obviously, that's just my $.02 and there are going to be a multitude of opinions here. It is a little hard to go wrong as long as you buy a VT enabled processor, minimum 8GB of ram and an SSD though.

If you find yourself needing help with initial ESXi setup (like how do you simply build a VM?) post here or PM me and I'll be happy to assist as I have the time. The VMware community forums are a ridiculous wealth of information as well.

Since the VMware site can be a little confusing, you can get free ESXi right here:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html

you'll want something that will do nested vms that has made a lot of testing very easy.

VMware Player or ESXi is very good at either of these. And their price is right, and there is plenty of documentation on how to do it out there.

 

[grimpr]

Thanks! great and simple information, i'm amazed that with so little money todays we could build awesome vm servers, oh and that Intel nic looks sweet, cant say no for lower ping times, faster browsing and the best support in town...i'll buy 2 for keepers and get rid of the crappy onboard nics once and for all! 🙂

 

[blckgrffn]

Thanks! great and simple information, i'm amazed that with so little money todays we could build awesome vm servers, oh and that Intel nic looks sweet, cant say no for lower ping times, faster browsing and the best support in town...i'll buy 2 for keepers and get rid of the crappy onboard nics once and for all! 🙂

Yes, I agree. It is pretty amazing that you can spend ~$500 and have the VM density a $5k+ server would have gotten you five years ago (minus the RAS features). There has been progress in technology 🙂

Intel NICs are pretty darn hard to beat, I agree! I am acutally using the dual port x4 PCIe NIC in my home WHS and ESXi servers.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Databases are regularly IO bound. Its very relevant that the VM have access to the technology that improves the performance of such instructions. Databases also benefit from lots of RAM. Databases can also happily use many cores so 6/8 cores is beneficial.

Depending on how heavy the usage is you might consider an SSD, lots of RAM, Intel 2011 or Bulldozer all along with it all VT-d/IOMMU.

Databases can use many cores, assuming ur cheapo company forks over the cash for those damn licenses. AAAAhhhhrrrg :whiste:

 

[steelodon]

I am actually glad I brought up this topic. There is a lot of good information provided here. I was venturing towards the i3 processors, thanks blckgrffn! I was also looking at an i5 760 on Ebay for this setup. Currently I have a Phenom II x4 925 on board with 4GB RAM in my main system.

 

[steelodon]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. It's also good to know others have benefited as well.

 

[nenforcer]

AMD has rolled what they used to call IOMMU into AMD-Vi which falls under their AMD-V Virtualization technologies.