Help, I'm confused. I have been trying to set up a VMware Workstation based app server so I can run some WIN7 and WIN8 based "appliances" and have been doing some benchmarking to see where the chokepoints might be located and how to optimize. For some reason I assumed that running SERV2102R2 as the host would be better than using WIN81 as a host, but that appears to be wrong. For lack of anything better I am using Passmark as a performance measuring tool both for the host and for the clients. Server is an i7-2600, Z77 chipset, 32Gb of ram, GTX 750ti, ADATA SSD256 as the boot drive. Client drive is ADATA SSD128 running on MB SATA3 or SATA3 PCI add in card. Using Workstation 10.3 and Passmark 8. Server2012R2 and WIN8.1, all updates, drivers are current. Interestingly right from the start, Passmark seems to be marginally higher on WIN81 vs SERV2012 - CPU, 3D graphics, memory and disk performance are within 3% which may be within benchmark tolerance. BUT 2D graphics is 23% higher in WIN81 vs SERV2012. Not sure as to why this is. On the client side I ran the WIN81 client on both host O/S and via the 2nd MB SATA3 port as well as via a Vantec PCIeSATA3 dual port card. As expected the choice of SATA ports only affected the clients disk score but interestingly enough the client performance on the WIN81 host was significantly better across the board - CPU +10%, 2D +80%, 3D +20%, memory +25%, disk +30%. This seems counter intuitive - should I be running my appliances on a Win81 host? this doesn't seem right! Alternatively should I be using something else as my host O/s? Don't really need super high 3D performance within the clients (no gaming involved) but snappy desktop response is definitely a priority. There seems to be a distinct lack of current Workstation performance tuning or testing info on the net - anyone have any suggestions or hints? Any comments or opinions? Ragnar
And HOW does Passmark relates actually to whatever you want to run inside the VM? Does the Passmark score going to make your (whatever) run slower or faster? Think of it this way: get really fast car (confirmed by ie. Top Gear test). It got brilliant results/reviews Now, you need to get a car to get to work. So you buy Ford which does really good job it was purchased for. Does the Top gear test of a very fast car make ANY difference to you using Ford to get to work? No, so do not worry about test results. Install whatever you need in VM & see how it performs. If good then you set, if there is any bottleneck, THEN you worry & try to improve it sebus
Regardless of what needs to be done inside the VMs, my concern is more to the question, why is there such a difference in VM performance between SERV2012R2 and WIN81 hosts? when they ...should... be fairly similar if not skewed in the favor of SERV>WIN81. The SERV performance penalty just seems counter intuitive and I was wondering if others had seen similar results or achieved significantly better test results. I can't be the only one who has tried to do generic benchmarks inside a VM in the effort to determine optimal generic host configurations. Ragnar