New Virtualisation PC

Just got myself a fresh new shiny PC in the office for testing and virtualisation and other bit and bobs to play with a break!

Antec P190 Case
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
OCZ 8Gb DDR2 RAM
Samsung 2Tb HDD (2 x 1Tb)
Pioneer DVR-115 (x2)

So, it's definately powerful enough! :p I'm still deciding whether to install XP x64 or Vista Business x64, I'm thinking it may as well be the latter.

Then on to the virtualisation, I'm thinking of running up a mini network on there, what should virtualisation software should I go for? Most of the opinions I have heard tell me to go for VMWare Workstation as opposed to Virtual PC. However, is there anything better? Should I maybe consider installing Windows Server 2008 and using the Hyper-V feature?

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I'm still deciding whether to install XP x64 or Vista Business x64

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Why not both? You have the space on the Hard Drive.

Hyper-V is buggy at the moment. I would use VMWare its the fastest and more stable in my opinion.

xp or vista is that really a choice?

there is another virtual machine program i use called VirtualBox it is free and pretty simple but effective.

VirtualBox

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Originally Posted by jmcdermott

xp or vista is that really a choice?

there is another virtual machine program i use called VirtualBox it is free and pretty simple but effective.

VirtualBox

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Good suggestion, i haven't used it myself but a friend of mine has. He speaks very highly of it.

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

Or you could preserve your resources for the virtualisation and run a headless Linux installation with either VMWare or Xen or Virtualbox or something like that :)

Server 2008 with VMware here - workstation pretty much the same spec and runs like a beauty.

I'll go for vmware anyday.. i've worked alot with Virtual PC.. but i like VMware's workstation or VMware fusion (if you have a mac).
ESX is even more awesome :D

bio..

Have any of you Virtualbox users noticed that it is really slow?

Also I can't seem to ping the Virtualbox machine even though I have set it to Bridged Networking and installed the additions that should allow pinging from host to guest.

Any ideas?

VirtualBox doesn't run slow for me but I have found it annoying with regards to the networking implementation compared to VM Workstation and VPC. I could never get it working with W2K3 Server RRAS so that ithe server had an externally facing interface and an external one. The others worked on default settings just fine.

I didn't however have any ping problems that I noticed.

I've ended up using it on some MacBooks because they do a mac version and it's free. They work just fine as far as the school network is concerned the setup is transparent. I did have problems with having two bridged adaptors (wireless and ethernet) but they went away when I gave them static IPs and left the default gateway blank.

For my home setup I use VM Workstation which I find slicker for what I need it for.

I used VM Workstation a while back, but you have to pay for it :S

I pxe booted virtualbox to WinPE (it's on a Win7 host) and it took an hour!

I can't use Virtual PC 2007 as Win7 blocks it and as I don't have a VT motherboard I can't use the inbuilt Win7 virtualisation (is getting grumpy)

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Originally Posted by jmcdermott

xp or vista is that really a choice?

there is another virtual machine program i use called VirtualBox it is free and pretty simple but effective.

VirtualBox

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Between XP64 and Vista64 I would say Vista anyday, the 64bit version is stable and reliable I have never had a problem.

Ok so it seems it isn't a problem limited to Virtualbox. Have installed VMserver 2 and I can't ping WinPE in that either *grumbles*, though it has an IP

I'm looking at Windows 7 and Windows Virtual PC for my next test rig. Then again my servers are in the process of being transitioned over to (eventually) Hyper-V v2, So keeping everything in compatible .vhd format makes sense.

Current test rig is running 2003 R2 with Virtual Server 2005R2.

Love VMWare, especially ESX - it's the nut's - just can't afford it. :(

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Reaper

I can't use Virtual PC 2007 as Win7 blocks it and as I don't have a VT motherboard I can't use the inbuilt Win7 virtualisation (is getting grumpy)

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This is why I'm now buying new machines with AMD processors. They are all 64bit and VT. Can't be asked to search through Intel processor range for one that has the right features and price. Intel need to sort this out!

I think all of the Core2duo and quad series have those functions. Just have to be carefull not to get a Pentium Dual core instead as they arent as fast.

Intel® Core?2 Quad Desktop Processor Family

With that link you can look at all of them against eachother with spec included.