Recommendations for new laptop for VMware Workstation 7 to run esx vm's

[fredtowery]

I'm getting ready to buy a new laptop and am looking for something that's reasonably priced and will be able to help me study for the new vcp tests by installing esx4 inside workstation.

If you all know of any good laptops that won't break the bank that will for sure work for this I would really appreciate your advice.

Thanks for your help.

[Student_Driver]

I have a Dell Studio XPS 13 (1340) with 8GB of RAM that I use for all my virtualization. I'd recommend getting anything with 8GB of RAM (or can at least support it), and if possible an eSATA port (for backups or running VMs on outboard storage) and as fast a harddrive as you can get. I love my Dell; it's been great.

[fredtowery]

Thanks for the reply.

I've been looking at them. Did you go with the Intel CoreTM 2 Duo P8700 (3MB cache/2.53GHz/1066Mhz FSB) or the

Intel CoreTM 2 Duo P8800 (3MB cache/2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB) for $50 more?

[fredtowery]

Also, which os did you go with?

[Student_Driver · Accepted solution]

I have the p9600 (2.66GHz w/ 6MB cache) in mine. You can just call and order, and ask for whatever you want. Sometimes (like in my case) they'll have CPUs that aren't even listed yet. I think the max is right at 3GHz. I typically run 3 VMs at once, or I'll run my team (4 VMs) and another 1 or 2 with them. I used it for my RHCT practice stuff, and will use it for my VCP and MCITP Enterprise Administrator practice as well. I got it with Vista x64, but put Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on it when it came in (MSDN).