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Piyo5
Contributor
Contributor

VMware Workstation Pro Questions

Hello,

I have a few questions about VMware Workstation Pro.

Is Linux or Windows the better host?

- Linux without anti-malware software

- Windows with anti-malware software

Which host is faster/stabler and passes resources better to these VM's?

Windows Server 2019 can also be used productively with VMware Workstation Pro, right?

Can a VM also be reliably backed up (copied) during operation?

Are there any commands for the console so that a VM is terminated (operating system shut down) and later restarted?

Many thanks in advance!

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi there, welcome to the community Smiley Happy

Is Linux or Windows the better host?

Depends... which OS do you prefer?

They both perform about the same, it's the hardware which makes the difference.

(Tho Linux hosts do perform better than Windows 2004 when Hyper-V mode/features is/are enabled)

Windows with anti-malware software

Yes, Windows Defender does use up some cycles. Performance will largely depend on what you're actually doing and the hardware you're using tho.

Which host is faster/stabler and passes resources better to these VM's?

They both perform basically the same with the exception being when Hyper-V mode is enabled in Windows. (Workstation uses the Windows Hypervisor Platform APIs instead of our own kernel extensions which are used on Linux hosts and Windows hosts without Hyper-V enabled)

Windows Server 2019 can also be used productively with VMware Workstation Pro, right?

Yes.

Can a VM also be reliably backed up (copied) during operation?

Yes. A good tool for that is Vimalin.

Are there any commands for the console so that a VM is terminated (operating system shut down) and later restarted?

We don't have a scheduling mechanism, but you can use cron (or some equiv on Windows) to control `vmrun` (the doc is a bit old but the commands haven't changed)

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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Piyo5
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks a lot!

Okay, so Linux tends to be a bit more powerful.

Which operating system do I prefer?

Depends. Smiley Wink

For me personally I would prefer Linux as host (VM a productive Windows + various test scenarios) and for customers Windows (VM Windows Server or Windows Server incl. Terminal Server).

Hardware: Mainboard with AMD B550/X570 chipset, AMD Ryzen 7/9 processor and NVMe M.2 SSD's

For the intended use: Run VMware Workstation Pro on a Windows system (+ Windows Server as VM), which variant would be preferable here, Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Pro Workstation?

(Since I work with a translator (English/German), this was not quite clear).

Thanks for the tip, I will have a look at Vimalin.

But I could e.g. also copy the directory of the VM with Windows console commands. This could be used just as reliably, right?

Sorry for the question, but what are the advantages of VMware over Microsoft Hyper-V (if host and VM were Windows systems)?

Do you have experience what hardware is required (with desktop hardware - AM4 socket), so that a Windows with VMware Workstation Pro and a Windows Terminal Server can be used smoothly by about 5 users without restrictions ("standard office environment", anti-malware and two databases), possibly a VM for a telephone system, as well as temporary/temporary (+ for testing purposes) a second Windows Terminal Server can be operated smoothly together?

Would this also be possible with a B550 chipset and an AMD Ryzen 7, or would it be necessary to use the X570 chipset + AMD Ryzen 9?

Thanks for your help!

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

which variant would be preferable here, Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Pro Workstation?

From VMware's perspective, there's no difference. One just has more features than the other, but they're unrelated to what Workstation needs and can do.

But I could e.g. also copy the directory of the VM with Windows console commands. This could be used just as reliably, right?

In general yes. Vimalin can backup while the VM is running, which you shouldn't do manually.

When the VM is powered off, yes.. at the end of the day it's just a bunch of files.

what are the advantages of VMware over Microsoft Hyper-V (if host and VM were Windows systems)?

Better performance, more features.  We can also run Nested (VMs inside VMs inside VMs...), but Hyper-V can only do that 1 layer and only with Hyper-V VMs.

(i.e. Workstation can run ESXi or Workstation (or KVM or any other hypervisor really) in VMs which they can in turn run VMs inside them). We spend a lot of time and energy making sure this works because it's part of how we build ESXi itself.

Do you have experience what hardware is required (with desktop hardware - AM4 socket), so that a Windows with VMware Workstation Pro and a Windows Terminal Server can be used smoothly by about 5 users without restrictions ("standard office environment", anti-malware and two databases), possibly a VM for a telephone system, as well as temporary/temporary (+ for testing purposes) a second Windows Terminal Server can be operated smoothly together?

Well that's a pretty specific use case lol

I would say this... for this type of setup, in general your bottlenecks are going to be:

- # of CPU cores

- Available RAM

- Disk I/O

- Network I/O

Probably in that order. More cores is better than higher frequency of those cores for multi-VM operations.

RAM is cheap, max it out.

Disk can get expensive but doesn't have to. You can either have a really big really fast SSD (2+ TB M.2 NVMe or something), or several smaller SSDs (sata or NVMe) with VMs on them, separate from the disk the Host OS is on.  Personally I have a 400GB M.2 NVMe for my Host OS, and a 2TB SATA SSD for VMs, but that's because the 1TB+ NVMe sizes were expensive at the time.

Would this also be possible with a B550 chipset and an AMD Ryzen 7, or would it be necessary to use the X570 chipset + AMD Ryzen 9?

I think they'll both work just fine, but it depends on the expectation of performance.

At the end of the day it's a balance between budget and expectations. With many users accessing the same system all day, performance might matter a little more than if it were just a single user and a handful of testing VMs that are run every once in a while.

If this is going to be an office system serving many users with 100% uptime, have you considered ESXi for this use case?

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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Piyo5
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Thanks for the answers!

Is there a guideline how many VM's can be run on a SATA (AHCI) SSD and on a M.2 (NVMe) SSD (PCIe 3.0/4.0)?

I had planned to run the host on the slowest SSD and the VM's on the faster SSD's.

Does a VM cause higher or possibly lower write speeds than a classic system without virtualization - bare metal - (regarding SSD selection - Client/Enterprise)?

I had already considered an ESXi system. But I had to realize that officially only server hardware is supported.

Since my focus is on small businesses (mostly one-man businesses with up to 10 employees and in the second step up to 25/50 employees) and since 98% of them cannot afford an "enterprise", I wanted to limit myself to desktop hardware.

Unless you could run ESXi productively with adequate performance (so that everything runs smoothly, like a bare metal system - assuming you have the appropriate hardware) on VMware Workstation Pro?

ESXi is free of charge to an extent (I don't know), so the first step would not be more expensive. Are there clear definitions, when you need the paid ESXi version?

But would it really make sense or be advantageous to use ESXi productively with a VMware Workstation Pro?

(Possibly, if you want to virtualize all clients and use only thin clients, since VMware Remote Console (at least I think so, right?) only works in conjunction with ESXi).

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Piyo5
Contributor
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I would still be happy about an answer Smiley Wink

I also have two more questions:

Under Linux there are unfortunately every time after a kernel update problems with the Workstation Pro (no longer usable). On Windows I also read that there are problems after a function update. Is this correct?

Is there a certain policy when VMware releases a new version? Will the licenses become cheaper at the end of the term?

[Currently I could not track the new release (version 16) because Microsoft has not released a new server and Windows 10 is relatively "the same"].

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louyo
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

>>Under Linux there are unfortunately every time after a kernel update problems with the Workstation Pro (no longer usable).

This isn't necessarily true. I have never run into that running several versions of Mint. They don't upgrade to the newest full kernel release every time. They backport important changes. I think Fedora stays bleeding edge but don't know if that is optional. I run on Linux but that is certainly not for everyone. If you are not familiar with it run it  in a VM.

https://itsfoss.com/why-distros-use-old-kernel/

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