hardware spec for vmware server [closed]

I'm considering buying a server for my home network to run vmware server, I use a number of virtuals for testing and web development (sharepoint, ie 6, 32bit windows, linux etc) and running workstation is killing my ability to use photoshop and illustator.

I'm very familiar with advanced desktop hardware for graphics and CAD workstations, but servers seem to be much different beasts and I was hoping you guys could pass along any tips - how much RAM, minimum spec etc?

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1:

VMWare Server is quite similar to VMWare Workstation, in that it runs on top of an existing operating system; you should go with VMWare ESXi, which is also free but uses the same hypervisor technology of ESX, leading to much better performance.

About specs: quite difficult to answer without knowing what you're going to virtualize. The only possible answer is "the more the better".

One hint I can give you: get as many physical disks as you can. VMs perform a lot better when they reside on dedicated disks than when they are sharing the same disk. A box with 2 quad-core CPUs and 16 GB memory will have a very, very hard time with only a single big disk, while it will do wonders with four smaller ones.

Solution 2:

I second the recommendation to go with ESXi. If you are building it at home (which I have just done myself), you might want to consider the Whitebox HCL. This is a list of unsupported hardware that works with VMware ESXi.