VMware Cloud Community
ahmo1
Contributor
Contributor

Few question for ESXi 4.1

Hi,

I have few questions for ESXi 4.1 this is very very important for me. Thank you everyone on helps!

1. Please, can you tell me what is better for using, thin or thick disk provisioning? Why using thick, why using thin and how both impact on performance?

2. I have big problem with bandwidth on virtual machines.For example, I have two virtual machines where installed Windows Server 2008. When I copy files from one machine to another (FTP, remote desktop, cifs, never mind what) speed is very bad, about 10 MB (bytes) per second. My network adapter show that is 1 Gbps connection, but speed is slow. Also its happening if I copy files from others server which are not in VMware ESXi 4.1 to some virtual machine. I dont know what is a problem, my server where is ESXi has 4 hard disks in RAID 5.

3. Does RAM memory shares between VM's? For example, if I have 100 GB RAM on server, and allocated 2 GB during creating new VM, and alloacted 4 GB RAM during creating second VM. So, I have 100 GB RAM but I allocated 4+2 ? 6 GB. So, VM's are using ONLY  allocted memory? Please can you describe me memory process and shares in ESXi 4.1?

4. How do incremental backup of VM's?

Reply
0 Kudos
8 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hello ahmo1,

Welcome to the communites.

Hope below link will help you .

you you will get these type of answer on Google or wiki or vmware site itself very easily .

"Life is never easy for those who dream"
Reply
0 Kudos
sparrowangelste
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

ahmo1 wrote:

Hi,

I have few questions for ESXi 4.1 this is very very important for me. Thank you everyone on helps!

1. Please, can you tell me what is better for using, thin or thick disk provisioning? Why using thick, why using thin and how both impact on performance?

2. I have big problem with bandwidth on virtual machines.For example, I have two virtual machines where installed Windows Server 2008. When I copy files from one machine to another (FTP, remote desktop, cifs, never mind what) speed is very bad, about 10 MB (bytes) per second. My network adapter show that is 1 Gbps connection, but speed is slow. Also its happening if I copy files from others server which are not in VMware ESXi 4.1 to some virtual machine. I dont know what is a problem, my server where is ESXi has 4 hard disks in RAID 5.

3. Does RAM memory shares between VM's? For example, if I have 100 GB RAM on server, and allocated 2 GB during creating new VM, and alloacted 4 GB RAM during creating second VM. So, I have 100 GB RAM but I allocated 4+2 ? 6 GB. So, VM's are using ONLY  allocted memory? Please can you describe me memory process and shares in ESXi 4.1?

4. How do incremental backup of VM's?

1: Thin. There is almost no reason to use thick anymore. thin's performance is nearly as good.

2: what type of nic are u using? vmxnet3?

3 in your example, vms that are allocated 2gb of ram will never use more than 2gb of ram.

4: incremental backups are done by your backup software

--------------------- Sparrowangelstechnology : Vmware lover http://sparrowangelstechnology.blogspot.com
Reply
0 Kudos
weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the Community - To add: as stated there is no real performance in using thin provisioned disks however as you environment grows you have to pay attention to storage use because as the thin disk grows in can fill in the entire datastore eventually causing the VM to stop -

In regards to memory VMware developed Transparent Page Sharing - which is the ability for the vmkernel to recognize identical memory pages and rather than store multiple copies it will store those pages one time in read only memory = if the VM needs to write to that page a copy is made and the write is done there -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
Reply
0 Kudos
ahmo1
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

@sparrowangels…,

1: OK thanks!

2. I'm using E1000 network driver, but I repeat, speed in transfer is very slow between two virtual machine in same VMware ESXi server.

3: For RAM, OK I understand now.

4: But which backup software I can use for inremental backup of vm's?

Reply
0 Kudos
sparrowangelste
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

vmware, veeam , quest, symantec all have products to backup your vms.

for incremental backups I dont htink anything is free

--------------------- Sparrowangelstechnology : Vmware lover http://sparrowangelstechnology.blogspot.com
Reply
0 Kudos
wmarusiak
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

about 2 - are those VM's attached to same vSwitch?

Best Regards, Wojciech https://wojcieh.net
Reply
0 Kudos
ahmo1
Contributor
Contributor

Yes,

Reply
0 Kudos
ahmo1
Contributor
Contributor

Very interesting! When I do copy/paste files on same virtual machine to another folder in same virtual machine (file size of 2 GB) speed transfer is about 6 MB/s!!! What is a problem????

Reply
0 Kudos