Windows 7: vmware server vs vbox vs vmware workstation

Hi all
Windows 7 x-64 host 4GB RAM dual core 2.3 ghz cpu.

Host CPU usage with 1 XP pro SP3 2GB Virtual machine running a file copy of a 2GB file. Host machine not running any other app.

Virtual Box 24%
Vmware workstation 19%
Vmware server 11%.

Now this shouldn't be taken as a rigorous benchmark but it does seem that Virtual Box tends to have more overhead than the other two applications -- I was running an I/O intensive application on the guest VM so the high overhead in Virtual Box might be due to the way the "Virtual I/O" subsystem is designed in VBOX.

I was rather surprised as my experience with SUN products is usually pretty good.

However it is a FREE and OPEN source product so it might not matter if you can afford the extra overhead.

Vmware server is great (and free) but a bit more complex to set up and use.

I expected the vmware server to have the least overhead as that's what it is designed to do unlike a workstation application.

Cheers
jimbo.

You might get even better performance with vmware player. You'll need to make a empty virtual disk first though that you can install with

EasyVMX!: Virtual Machine Creator

is a good site to use, although if u already created it with vmware server you can just use what you have

Hi there
vmware player is good but the advantage of using vmware server is that the vm's start automatically on boot whereas for vmware player I have to logon to the host and fire up the application and start each vm manually.

Another possible advantage - especially if I use Linux as a host with vmware server I don't even need to start a GUI ( the X-server in Linux which usually would run GNOME or KDE). With the Host in "Console Mode" the guests have a HUGE amount of extra resources to use.

Vmware server is a bit more complicated to get working correctly but well worth the effort.

Cheers
jimbo.

Depending upon your hardware and your needs, VMware offers the ESXi product free of charge. This is a hypervisor based virtual server...meaning that it doesn't require any base os to already be on the box. It loads it's own very stripped down Linux installer that has just the pieces to run the virtual machines.

ESXi handles hardware resources far better than VMWare Server 2.0...however it's quite picky about the type of hardware that it works on. If you are running a genuine server class machine, you are likely just fine. If you are trying to use a cobbled together workstation class machine, you are going to need to check the whitebox sites to see if your hardware is compatible. Here is the whitebox HCL webpage for ESXi4 (ESX / ESXi 4.0 Whitebox HCL)