Correct configuration?

[DEA2019]

I just purchased a new desktop and was looking to run my past versions of windows on VMs. I was considering cloning the installed Win 10 to a M.2 SSD, install VMWorkstation, and use VMConverter to create VMs from disks removed from other machines that contain Win& and Win 8.1. I thought about creating another vmachine with Win 10, but would that be redundant? Perhaps ESXi would be a better solution? Any suggestions on implementation?

Machine:

HP Pavilion Desktop 690-0067c

AMD Ryzen™ 7 processor 8 cores

AMD Radeon™ RX 550 graphics

16GB RAM

1TB HD

1TB M.2 SSD

[NathanosBlightc]

Hi

As you said why you don't setup your VMs in a Bare-Metal solution (ESXi environment) against Hosted (VMware Workstation)? Is there any consideration or special limitation?

[DEA2019]

Hello Amin,

My main consideration was trying to minimize overhead, That is why I might look at an ESXi solution. I was thinking about installing ESXi on the SSD, building my VMs , and possibly keeping my factory install of Win 10. Would it be easier to do a clean install of Win 7/8.1/10? I believe in order to clone the OS on the external drive is to boot from that drive, install Converter, and put the cloned OS on the HD until I'm ready to create the VM. Although I do have 1TB to work with I'm worried about the size of the cloned OS. Is there any risk of running out of space on the clone(s)?

[NathanosBlightc]

installing ESXi on the SSD

No need to install it on the SSD datastore, it just recommended to put the swap file location on the SSD datastore. for better activity of virtual machine you can do it for them too ...

I want to ask you why you want to choose this long-time story for deploying your required VMs?
If you don't want to use vCenter (for clonning and managing template) you can do like this:

1. Prepare a VM with win10 guest OS and update it and install your required update and applications
2. Sysprep it and export an OVF/OVA file from this VM
3. Deploy and setup other VMs from this OVF/OVA ...

[DEA2019]

I only meant to be thorough in my explanation of the situation, didn't mean to run on :smileycool:

So, for completeness for this application the following should be done:

1. Install ESXi on HD, locate swapfile on SSD; configure as necessary

2. Create a VM that will contain Win 10; install OS and update machine, add appropriate apps.

3. Sysprep the VM; export the OVF/OVA file.

4. Create other VMs from the OVF/OVA; install desired OS. Repeat as necessary.

This method will reduce much of the overhead involve with creating the desired VMs, which is what I was looking for. If I missed anything please let me know, and thanks!

[NathanosBlightc]

4. Create other VMs from the OVF/OVA; install desired OS. Repeat as necessary.

Just in step 4, no need to install the OS again. when you install it first before generating OVF/OVA, there is no reason to install it again