Hardware Help for Proxmox VE

[xodiacx]

Hi to all,

this is my first time posting here as a new member and a newbie in virtualization hardware configuration and hope all of you can help me.

Scenario: I want to create a cheap computer home lab where 9 virtual machines can run at the same time 24x7.
Resources Available: Old Desktop computer with the ff specs:

• Processor - Athlon II x2 240(regor)(amd-v)
• Mobo - Gigabyte m68mt-s2(can enable virtualization)
• Chipset - GeForce 7025/nForce 630a
• Ram - 6GB DRR3 (4GB DDR3+2GB DDR3) kingston (Value Ram)
• PSU - Hec Raptor 500w
• HDD - Seagate 80GB, WD 500GB, TOSHIBA 500GB (ALL SATA)

Question:

• Can my existing hardware run Proxmox VE and also can accomodate 9 virtual machines running at the same time?
• Do I need to upgrade some parts?
• Do I need to overclock?

Budget: I'm really in a tight spot with this because I'm a graduating student and has no work, so I was wondering if it can be maximized with currently what I have. But if you have any suggestion or tip I am open with it.

Thanks, your help would be much appreciated.

 

[kobuki]

It's fine for a lot of workloads, but 9 is just a number. What VMs do you plan to use? KVM, OpenVZ or both? OVZ is more memory-efficient but only runs Linux. KVM is going to work too, but if you don't run anything but Linux, it might not be important for you. What are the VMs going to do? If you have heavy disk I/O requirements, don't use single disks, but redundancy is always good, so I'd suggest using a mirror with the 2x500G (mdadm level=10, layout=f2).

 

[e100]

It should run Proxmox ok.
Smallest I ever used was a Athalon II quad core with 8GB RAM, it did great running Proxmox and 5 virtual servers.

If you are doing CPU intensive things, you will have issues.
My experience is that CPU is usually not the limiting factor, RAM ( not enough ) and disk speed are usually where the problems are.
With 9 VMs @ 500MB RAM each, thats 4.5G of your RAM, you need to leave some RAM free for Proxmox.

If thats what you have on your student budget I'd say give it a try.

 

[xodiacx]

@all thanks for your quick feed back


@kobuki - I don't know if it is heavy at I/O requirements. I think I'll be using both OVZ and KVM


@e100 - so let's say if I want a smooth running VMs I should upgrade my ram like 8GB or 16GB and SSD for the HOST and HDD
where the VMs will be stored? Is it correct?


These are the Servers I have in mind installing:
* Windows Server 2008 Standard(DNS,Active Directory,II7,GPO)
* LAMP
* SQUID|DANSGUARDIAN
* LDAP
* DHCP


DESKTOP
* WIN XP
* WIN 7

 

[mir]

With the intended VM's I would recommend upgrading your amount of memory.

Pure VM
Windows 2008 2.0 GB
Lamp 0.5 GB
Squid/Dan.. 0.5 GB
LDAP 0.5 GB
DHCP 0.5 GB
WinXP 1.0 GB
Win7 2.0/4.0 GB
Proxmox 2.0 GB (File cache etc)

Total 9-11 GB RAM

Mixed CT/VM
Windows 2008 2.0 GB VM
Lamp 0.25 GB CT
Squid/Dan.. 0.25 GB CT
LDAP 0.25 GB CT
DHCP 0.25 GB CT
WinXP 1.0 GB VM
Win7 2.0/4.0 GB VM
Proxmox 2.0 GB (File cache etc)

Total 8-10 GB RAM

But no matter which alternative you choose I would recommend you to by a hardware raid controller.
This Dell Perc 5/i with BBU for 20$ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-MX961-...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item33863bec0d
And SFF-8484SAS->SATA cables 5$: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAS-Control...t=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item2ec932dc9e

Total 25$

A lot of tips and tricks for this card here: http://www.overclock.net/t/359025/perc-5-i-raid-card-tips-and-benchmarks

A for painless network performance I would replace the onboard Realtek nic with an Intel ditto:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-INTEL-E...US_Internal_Network_Cards&hash=item1e82df90c5
30$

 

[xodiacx]

@mir - Thanks for the suggestion. I think I should also upgrade/change my mobo, the max capacity of ram support is up to 8GB only. I don't know if it can handle 16GB of RAM.

 

[kobuki]

For those, you'll prolly need more RAM as the others suggested. You could manage with 6G and KSM since you have several Windows OSes, but it's pushing it TBH. Windows VMs tend to eat some CPU in idle, too. I'd only buy the RAID card if I were able to add more HDDs (at least 4 identical ones in total for a RAID10). Otherwise - for a home/testing environment - a suitably sized SSD is also a good choice. Most newer ones have extra overprovisioning capabilities so you can have some leeway for I/O. The amount of RAM you reserve for PVE itself also depends on a few factors - for KVM on LVM and pure raw devices, using cache=none is usually the better choice since the VM manages the cache itself. qcow and vmdk can gain a lot by having them cached on the host, requiring more RAM left for the host (write-back or a setting that fits your requirements). Well, do tests and you'll see for yourself.

 

[wahmed]

You need more RAM to run 9 VMs as others already pointed out. There is just no way around it. Also you probably need a different CPU which supports Virtualization. To show you what Proxmox can do with extremely under powered Node, take a look at the image below. This node is Athlon X2 4200+ with Virtualization option and 4GB RAM. Not too far from your 3500+. This one currently running 11 VMs with 1 vCore and variabel RAM between 512MB to 1024MB for all VMs. All the VMs are somewhat under load. The node has no bling such as RAID Card. Only a 80GB Sata HDD for the OS and all VMs are on Shared Storage.


Of course this is not an ideal scenario. 11 VMs are the max i could push it. Trimming it down to 8 or 9 lessens much pressure. For low budget, learning purpose it should be good enough.