Hyper-V to replace VMWare Server
Some weeks ago I have deployed two virtual machines to run my Windows Homeserver
VMware Server 2 build 8xxxx has not started my VMs after host’s reboots and repeatedly asked whether I copied the machines or moved it. There was no default in order to avoid these silly questions as I did neither. Obviously this must be something with my second harddrive containing the VMs. Then, build 101586 crashed my host every time a VM started…
A nice thing has been the web access for administration and the option to utilize VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure [Client], but in summa these demanded quite a big portion of my RAM (about 500 MB). The fact that 2 GB of guest RAM grew to an usage of about 3.5 GB host’s RAM usage made me move to Hyper-V.
The latter consumes only about 2.5 GB RAM and network performance increased significantly! Where VMware limits the guests’ network speed to the one the host is connected (say 100 MBit), Hyper-V creates a virtual net “above” your host’s networking device, with 10 GBit. Therefore I can transfer data from/to my Homeserver with full speed. Excellent!
I/O-Performance is quite good, and for computing performance I do not have the tools to measure it. Honestly spoken, it is not that relevant as I run an fileserver and a mailserver for definitely under 25 users.
But, there is still some bugs in Hyper-V. I could not manage to copy VMs and trivial importing/exporting did not work.
On moving to Hyper-V? Make sure you check these out:
- Hyper-V Monitor Gadget
- VMDK to VHD converter – did work like a charm
- Screenshots of Hyper-V in action
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