New to Virtualization-need a little help.

[Smorton]

As stated, I am very new to Virtualization and I was thinking of trying to install Win XP on my current Win7 machine. I don't now if I have the power or the ram needed.

I currently have Windows 7 Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Z9550 @ 2.83 GHZ 2.83 GHZ
8.00 GB of Ram, 64 bit operating system

I was going to try to install VMware Player or VirtualBox to run the Win XP. (I would also like to try Ubuntu or Linux Mint sometime).

Do I have enough ram and power? I could buy more ram. Also, my hard drive is small. It is a 120 GB Samsung SSD.

Thanks for any input.

Smorton

 

[Dude]

Yes you can run virtual, I suggest you look through this section Virtualization - Windows 7 Help Forums


The thread you posted in, sorry had another tab going in general discussion. And yes I would look at adding some more hard drive.

 

[Smorton]

More drive or more ram?

Thanks

Sm

 

[Dude]

More hard drive. If you plan on running xp, ubuntu, and mint each can take a couple of gb, and I"m not sure how much free space you have.

 

[whs]

You have plenty of everything you mentioned. You did not say how much disk space you have. Figure 40GB for a Windows system and 20GB for a Linux system (average use and average number of programs and user files).

Have a look at this tutorial. Although it was written for Windows 8, it fully applies to all systems. You just have to select the type of system you want to install in one of the first steps. My advice, make an immediate installation. No need to delay the installation (you'll see).

Here is a little tutorial I made for installing a Linux distro - Zorin in this case but I also installed Mint that way. The only difference is in the commands needed to activate the VMware Tools. It may give you more insight.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/278957-vmware-player-install-setup-zorin.html

If you have any questions, let me know. I will be glad to help.

 

[Smorton]

Right now I have 63.7 GB of used space and 55.4 GB of space that is unused on my C drive. I keep all of my documents, etc on another drive. It probably would be too expensive to get another, bigger SSD at this time. I can't run the guest OS on an external hard drive I imagine?

If I don't have enough ram will it get doggie? I like the speed I currently have. Would I notice much difference?

Thanks

SM

 

[Smorton]

Heck, the Windows 8 looks like an interesting thing to install. Those are good directions.

Sm

 

[whs]

Don't worry about the RAM. You have plenty. I gave my Windows 8 virtual 3GB of RAM which leaves 5GB for the rest which is Windows 7 and I also usually run Mint Mate with 1.5GB. They all run beautifully and the virtual systems run from a 60GB external SSD that I bought at Newegg for $59.95. Reason is also because my internal SSD is only 60GB. From that I sometimes run Zorin in addition to Windows 7. But Zorin needs only 12GB including VMware and the tools.

Here I have a little demo running Windows 8 in VMware Player.

http://www.sevenforums.com/virtualization/277690-vmware-player-windows-8-demo.html

 

[Smorton]

You can run virtual OS from an external SSD. I didn't know that. Hard to do? I will look at your video

Thanks

SM

 

[Smorton]

Any tutorial on how to run an OS in virtual from an external SSD?

Clever.

SM

 

[whs]

Here is the tutorial for installing on an external disk.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/276540-portable-os-carry-your-os-external-drive.html

 

[kado897]

You can run a VM from any drive SSD or HDD internal or external, even USB 2 attached although that can be slow.

When you set up the VM just browse to where you want to store it. I currently have 15 VMs set up in VirtualBx on a USB attached HDD.

 

[VirTech]

We have a Lifebook using a single 120GB SSD running Windows 7, Windows 8, OSX Mountain Lion, and Ubuntu. It runs perfect and is a real discussion point with those who have an interest in this sort of thing.

 

[whs]

We have a Lifebook using a single 120GB SSD running Windows 7, Windows 8, OSX Mountain Lion, and Ubuntu. It runs perfect and is a real discussion point with those who have an interest in this sort of thing.

Do you run some of those systems virtual and what do you use for virtualization - especially for Mountain Lion.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Virtual Machines just eat RAM for breakfast -- you can install a VM on an external USB disk to save space -- even a decent USB2 drive will give acceptable performance -- a USB 3 disk (provided you have USB 3 port(s) will certainly be more than adequate.

You need at least 8 GB RAM on the host to run any sort of virtualisation program - even if you only allocate 1GB RAM to each VM.

If you have a spare SSD then even using this via a USB2 slot will give you EXCELLENT performance when the VM is installed on the SSD. Use one of those SATA==>USB connectors for connecting the SSD to the USB port.

RAM is the key in running VM's.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[whs]

I don't see your point. Whether you install virtual system on an external drive or an internal drive makes no difference for the RAM requirement. And the RAM requirements depend on the system that you run in virtual. Whilst most Linux distros will run OK with 1GB of RAM you should allocate 2 or 3GB of RAM for a Windows system.

The total RAM requirement will depend on the amount of virtual systems that you want to run in parallel. I usually run only 1 virtual system in addition to the host system. And for that, 4GB of RAM are sufficient.

Your point of running virtual systems from an external SSD is well taken. I do that all the time and it performs super from a USB3 port and acceptable from a USB2 port. Here is a tutorial I have made for that kind of setup.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/276540-portable-os-carry-your-os-external-drive.html

Btw: I have a total of 6 Linux virtual systems and 1 Windows 8 virtual system. But I never run them concurrently. Once I also ran Android in Virtual but that was not so swift.