Windows 10: VM - run on SSD or Spinner?

Hello,

Have a laptop with both SSD and HDD and will be running at least a couple of VMs simultaneously most of the time.

Was wondering if for optimal performance - SSD life + Performance of VMs - should it matter if I run these VMs on SSD? or should I run them in Spinner with OS and VMWare running on SSD?

Thanks,

:)

 

Re-Activating Windows 10 On a VM On a New SSD

I recently replaced the SSD on my MackBook pro. I re-installed Windows 10 on my VM but I am unable to re-activate Windows on it. Before I replaced my SSD I deactivated the license so I could transfer it to my new VM. When I run the troubleshooter to try
and find the device linked to my Microsoft Account it cannot find it yet when I log into my account through a web browser I can see the device listed. Anyone have any tips to reactive my Windows 10 device running on a VM?

 

Hyper V VM not responding

I've built a Win 10 Pro pc consisting of i7 3770k with on-board 1gb graphics, 8gb ram, 1x SSD, 2 x hard drives.

I've created a VM under hyper v of the minimum specs required because that's all I need. The dos os I'm running in it is called spinrite which runs in 640k ram. The VM starts and runs perfectly but after 10 minutes the dos program becomes unresponsive to
keyboard inputs. The VM menus work ok, the internal machine doesn't, the software continues to run until completion. Can somebody help me understand why the VM doesn't respond to keyboard inputs? On the status bar bar it says keyboard inputs captured.

Regards

 

While it might load quicker, once its running, the guest OS will see a generic storage device. So if you decide to run older versions of Windows, you will be constrained by its methods of handling hardware rather than the Host OS. So the further back you go with older versions of Windows, the less and less optimised for modern hardware they become.

 

Here are a couple of videos I posted here in the forums already, on having VM's on an SSD.
I'm my case I have my VM's on another SSD than my C: drive, but you'll still get the idea.
First video is with my system seriously overclocked, the second, is using RAPID Mode(Samsung SSDs), so this might help your question of performance:
[youtube]MXs506jpKQQ[/youtube]

[youtube]Vg4qqqQWApI[/youtube]

[youtube]gO-QN77z0_Q[/youtube]

 

Thanks for your response.

Host - Win-10 Pro
VMs - mix of Win-10 Pro and Win-7 Pro

So, did I understand correctly that Win-10 Pro VMs to be on SSD and Win-7 Pro VMs to be on HDD?

 

I have only ONE SSD and one HDD in the system.

With a Win-10 Pro Host and Win-7 Pro VMs and Win-10 Pro VMs, what would be recommended drive for VMs.

Thanks

 

If you have enough space on the host SSD, by all means put your vm machines on it. Vm machines can take up a lot of space though.

 

The laptop I use to run a VM is using VirtualBox on a spinner... and it can be pretty slow at times, so I often find myself wishing that machine had an SSD.
I can't remember if VirtualBox has a configuration setting to tell the guest it's on a solid-state drive - I think it may do?

 

How can I put this....*Think*Think*Think





Do you use your VM's more than your Host?
If yes, place them on the SSD, as they will boot faster and feel much snappier.
With Virtual Machines, a lot more is running in memory(RAM), then on a real PC, so if your VMs are on the SSD, you will also have a lot less latency, when it needs to read or write to, your VHD.

 

Yes, I use my VMs more than I use the host.

SSD - I have a 1TB SSD and 750GB HDD (I know, I know, many people have pulled my leg on this one since most people have larger HDDs and smaller SSDs *Smile*Smile). But my 750GB HDD came from my old Win-7 laptop.

Thinking of which one to use - I have VMWare Workstation VMs and with Win-10 Pro having Hyper-V, was wondering if I should continue using VMWare or switch to Hyper-V for my existing VMs.
New VMs - which one should I use VMWare or Hyper-V?

Thanks for your response.

 

I always had performance issues with VB. Hence had moved to VMWare (of course free vs paid).

Does VMWare have a setting that can tell the guest that it is on a SSD?

Thanks,

 

About being HDD or SSD aware, I'm not sure about VMWare(I haven't used it in a while, but Hyper-V for example won't do anything hardware oriented, it will tell you to do it in your host. For example, running WinSAT Formal, or perfmon /report and many other things alon those lines. I suspect al hypervisors are so though, as they only simulate their hardware, to create the machine.

As to using VMWare, or Hyper-V, they both have their pros & cons, and just like browsers and AV's it's a matter or personal preference. But if you also run any Linux distros, I recommend staying with VMWare, because Hyper-V support for Linux just plain sucks. No sound, and no chance in adjusting the screen size either. I have an Ubuntu machine, and have these problems, but I use it only as a glorified browser anyhow, when I want to browse really private, and a tad safer too.

To learn more about Hyper-V: Hyper-V

 

If you have the disk space, put them on the SSD. Much quicker, better I/O.

Heck, you can pick up 240GB SSD's for about $65.

 

To me it is no contest as Hyper-v is more integrated into Windows and definitely outperforms vmware or virtual box.

The only real downside to Hyper-v that may affect you is if the guest OS does not support RDP as a server (Windows 10 home is only one in W10 versions).

The effect of this is you can only use OS as a basic rather than enhanced session which means you will not get any sound (and from memory inability to plug in flash drive - not certain here).

I like the way that once you set a hyper-v session going, it just executes in the background even if you shut down the hyper-v menu system. You can run multiple sessions in parallel if cpu is powerful enough, and enough RAM.

With vmware etc, you have to have vmware running all the time, and trying to run two vmware sessions in parallel is pretty much a no no.

I also like the way (in enhanced mode) you can share a hard drive between host and vm guest. With vmware, when it is accessing a hard drive, the hard drive is not available to the host.

I only use vmware when I have to (great tool though to be fair but imo Hyper-v is generally superior).

Hyper-v is not as intuitive to set up but many great guides in the tutorial section on this forum (under letter H) written by Kari - our resident Hyper-v MEGA Guru.

One great feature that can be only done with Hyper-V is to use a tool called Macrium ViBoot which is a sister program to the great Macrium Reflect program to make system image backups. This tool allows to to open up a Macrium backup mage and run the imaged OS as a hyper-v session. In V7 of Macrium Reflect in a few days time the two programs are to be merged as one which is awesome.