High throughput with only one VM

[galvatec]

I'm using a Dell server model T110 with a 3.10GHz 4-core XEON processor and 8GB of 3.10GHz DDR3 memory plus 2 480GB SATA SSDs in ZFS RAID1 and 2 more 1TB HDDs in ZFS RAID1 so I ask if this configuration is much lower necessary, because with only one Windows 10 VM the processing is getting to 90%

I know I need more memory but I wonder if just adding more memory will improve because it already happens to turn off the VM

 

[Dunuin]

With your 8GB of RAM you shouldn't assign the WinVM more than 4GB RAM. PVE itself and ZFS needs some GBs of RAM too. And in my personal opinion Win10 runs terrible with less than 6GB of RAM so upgrading RAM might be a good idea.

 

[Neobin]

Is the processor the X3480?

While a memory upgrade should definitely be considered and help here, I wouldn't expect too much anyway from a 12 year old quad-core processor (even with HT) and a virtualized, relative ressource-heavy desktop-OS like Windows (10).

PS.: I hope the boot/system disk of that VM is on the SSD-pool!?

Edit to hopefully be more helpful:

• Did you follow the "Windows 10 guest best practices" guide? [1]
• Have you set the cpu type to "host" for the VM?
• Are you using "virtio scsi" for the storage controller and "scsi" for the disk (if not, don't change or your Windows most likely won't boot anymore!) and also virtio for the nic for the VM?
• If yes, have you installed all (virtio)-drivers in Windows itself? [2]

If you provide the output of qm config <VMID> we can have a look over your VM configuration.

As RolandK said: Look what exactly is using so much cpu resources inside Windows. Could for example be updates in the background.

[1] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_10_guest_best_practices
[2] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_VirtIO_Drivers

 

[RolandK]

yes, upgrade shouldn't hurt, as you get even better and more energy efficient ystems for very few bucks. but i don't think the processer is too weak for running a windows 10 vm. ok, it doesn't perform like a recent one and it's not energy efficient, either ( https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Xeon-X3480-vs-Intel-Xeon-L5630/1708vs2086 ) , but many notebooks running win10 should have weaker cpu's and in a VM, you often don't run desktop/interacive workload, too.

>because with only one Windows 10 VM the processing is getting to 90%

you mean cpu load in dashboard shows 90% for a longer period? you should check what's burning so much cpu inside the VM.

>because it already happens to turn off the VM

what's meant here? is the vm is getting shutdown/killed ?