Low power box for running VM? Oxymoron?

[Santilli]

Hi
If you wanted a server box to run VM, using 64 bit, 7 Ultimate, and probably
VMware, yet didn't want to add the straw to the camel's back on your PG&E bill, how would you configure the machine to be both fast, yet have limited electricity usage?
Inexpensive would be good, as well, but I think I'll be settling for value...

GS

 

[ddrueding]

Considering most of your VMs won't be stressed hard (at least not all at once), CPU power is mostly irrelevant. If you plan on running many machines at once, memory is important. If these machines will be simply sitting there most of the time, storage is mostly a non-issue.

So a low-powered CPU with some drive of some kind and lots of RAM would be my default answer.

What/how many VMs are you looking to play with?

 

[Santilli]

Running a mail server,demo server, development server,

3 VMS, and exchange server.

 

[Mercutio]

An i3-2100 was suggested as a possible basis for my low-power file server. I suspect they would work for your needs as well. Or you could let your roommate to find his own damned hardware.

 

[ddrueding]

Yeah, i3-2100 sounds about right. And depending on the load (this is a test enviroment, yeah?), 8-24GB of RAM. 12-16 would be a good start. Considering that most of the i3 boards only have 4 DIMM slots, you are looking at 4x4GB DIMMs for 16GB total. Those are DB intensive tasks, so an SSD would be in heaven if your budget supports one large enough. And because it is a test environment, and because it is so easy to back up and restore VMs, no redundancy is needed beyond a backup to a cheap disk somewhere.