building a new system for VMware Workstation 7.1.4

[marcins]

After recently passing my VCP4 exam, and getting my free copy of VMware Workstation, I am looking to start working on my next cert (MCITP: Server Administrator).

I would like to build a new computer, so I could run several (4-6) VM's (for testing/training purposes) and I wonder if anyone has any recommendation for this.

So far, I am looking at either i5-2500k or i7-2600k CPU with 16 GB ram using P67 board (most likely Asus). I also have a separate SSD drive (128 GB) for all my vm files. Any idea how many Windows 2008r2/Windows 7 vm's will I be able to reliably host?

Also, does VMware workstation take advantages of Hyper Threading? I am still not sure if I would want to save about $100 and go with i5-2500k, which does not have HT and has less cache, or just go with i7 for maximum performance.

Thank you for any suggestions.

[idle-jam]

with SSD in place the bottle neck would probably be the RAM and CPU. if i'm in your position i would just for the MAX cpu, afterall you might never know you will be running CPU intensive tasks in future. good luck.

[continuum]

you did not mention the most interesting question - which OS do you want to use as host system.

My first choice would be 2k3-64 , then XP-64 , then 2008 R2 no servicepack  , then Win7-64 no servicepack ... then Linux
I would not use Win7 or 2008 R2 with servicepack 1 at the moment

also 128 Gb SSD is not that much for 6 VMs

[marcins]

I am leaning towards i7 as the price difference is under $100, so the choice is easier to make.

[marcins]

My current host OS is Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate 64-bit, which I currently use with VMware workstation 7.1.4 and have no problems so far. I have noticed some complains about Windows 7 SP1 and vmware workstation; however, it seems like all the issues with memory and powering on vm’s were limited to 7.1.3 which did not supported SP1.

Are people still reporting same issues with 7.1.4?

I agree 128 GB is not much in today’s era of terabytes hard drives, but unfortunately I can't justify getting another SSD or getting 240/256 GB at this point.  I will still have a normal hard drive available to move less demanding vm's of the SSD, so I hoping to manage it that way before I will be able to add another SSD.

[continuum]

some folks still report memory leaks with Win7-sp1 and WS 7.1.4

if you only  use 2008 R2 and Win 7 VMs you could create two master VMs - one for each OS - and then save diskspace by using several linked clones

[marcins]

This is a great advice; however, should I be concerned about performance of linked clones? Is the drop noticeable?