VMware questions

[acemcmac]

First, is VMware Player more resource efficient than VMware server when running just one guest OS on a 2003 host? Currently my server only has 512 megs of ram, but I'm going to take it to 1280 when I get home. Just two Windows XP Pro sessions previously slammed memory utilization on the box.

I'd like to run some disk intensive stuff (torrents) on a vmware guest session. The drives are local to the host box. Previosly, I had planned on mapping them as network drives, but I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do it without having to *give* the drives to the guest OS.

 

[dphantom]

Keep in mind minimum memory for 2003 server is 512 so when you add 2 XP pro OS's both of which need 128 minimum, you will inevitably have memory problems that VmPlayer, even if it is more efficient probably can't overcome.

Is VmPlayer more efficient than VmServer? Probably not all that much. Player is "lighter" so you may see some marginal improvement using it as opposed to the server version.

Your bigger issue is upgrading memory on the machine that is the host for your guest OS's. Even 1280 may not be sufficient as 2003 server recommends 1GB.

Try running perfmon and analyze the difference if any when running player as opposed to server.

 

[MrChad]

VMWare is memory hungry regardless of whether you use Player or Server.

 

[mzkhadir]

Right now, I am using virtual pc 4 to run win 2003 with 256mb of memory, I have quality center loaded on the machine and oracle. The machine where the vpc resides has 1gb of ram.