Fusion Hardware

[jct2022]

Hi, 

I would like to buy a workstation dedicated to run 2-3 VMs at a time. The VMs won't be doing much so they don't need a lot of ram.  Basically, I just want to use it to test my Windows Deployment SCCM process. 

Does anyone have something similar setup and how much RAM, or better yet, which workstation works well for you?

Thanks!

Jennifer. 

[Technogeezer]

(Edited and thanks to  @palter for pointing out my omission/forgetfulness).

You didn't state this explicitly, but I'm assuming that you'll be testing an environment consisting of Windows Server and one Windows 10 or 11 which run on Intel/AMD PCs. If If this is the case, I would not buy one of the latest M1/M2 Mac models to do what you want to do. These models use Apple Silicon CPU chips and can't virtualize operating systems that run on Intel/AMD chips. Your options are a new Intel Mac (either the Mac Pro, or the Mac mini that @palter references in a following post), or a refurbished or used Intel Mac in order to virtualize these operating systems under VMware Fusion (or Parallels Desktop for that matter).

As far as a configuration, I'd opt for any Mac model that has 4 cores and a minimum of 16GB of memory. Or a cheap Intel PC with similar specs.

[palter]

Apple still sells a Mac mini with a 6-core Intel processor. (Presumably,  it will be removed from sale when there's a mini with an M2 Pro processor.)

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/3.0ghz-intel-core-i5-6-core-processor-with-intel-uhd-gra...

[Technogeezer]

@palter thanks for the correction - I hadn't realized that model was still for sale.

I'll go back and edit my original post.