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lkane
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Need clarification about memory reservation

I've been creating my first virtual machine and see that the memory allocated to this vm seems to be limited.

The host machine has 16GB of memory, but I am only allowed to reserve 384MB to this machine. The resource allocation tab for the VM shows that it is using 353/384MB of the guest memory. Is this ok or is there something wrong? It is recommended that I have at least 4GB of memory for this installation. Will the guest memory expand as it requires more resources?

here are some images:

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ScreenHunter_05 May. 19 15.57.gif

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bilalhashmi
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The 35x number is your active memroy and the 38x number is your active+overhead. Like mentioned above, you can increase the memory allocated to the VM. Simply power off the VM, right click go to edit settings and change the memory. Your guest will then see the newer amount of memory allocated. However, this will not effect the active memory of ur guest. That will probably still stay low if  the guest is not heavily used. If you want you can reserve memeroy for it. But that will not be needed.Your guest will simply request more memory when it needs it (max being the amount u have alloccated to the guest). By not setting reservations, you will not be dedicating memory to a VM that may not even use it.. Hope that makes sense..

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal

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a_p_
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How much RAM did you configure for the VM? You cannot reserve more RAM than configured to the VM. Unless you really need a reservation you shouldn't do that and let ESXi manage memory.

André

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lkane
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i probably just let it take the default which was probably half a gb. I was under the assumption that the amount of memory given to each vm was adjustable. It needs to be specified during the creation of the vm? If so, is the amount specified an absolute limit that it will be able to use or can the vmachine use more of the host memory if it requires it?

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a_p_
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You can adjust the memory at any time in the VM's settings, usually while the VM is powered off. The amount of memory you assign to the VM is the amount of memory the guest OS will see. The guest OS cannot use more memory than assigned to it.

André

bilalhashmi
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The 35x number is your active memroy and the 38x number is your active+overhead. Like mentioned above, you can increase the memory allocated to the VM. Simply power off the VM, right click go to edit settings and change the memory. Your guest will then see the newer amount of memory allocated. However, this will not effect the active memory of ur guest. That will probably still stay low if  the guest is not heavily used. If you want you can reserve memeroy for it. But that will not be needed.Your guest will simply request more memory when it needs it (max being the amount u have alloccated to the guest). By not setting reservations, you will not be dedicating memory to a VM that may not even use it.. Hope that makes sense..

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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lkane
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thanks. I had tried to change the memory settings with the vm powered down before, but i was trying to do it in the host resource settings and not in the VM's properties. thanks for the help

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