After some bad disk perfo with the ML350 I choose not to use proxmox and/or linux-kvm , this week I deployed a new ML330 G6 and because I'm still not sure that the disk performance should be that bad I retry a complete install with proxmox and vmware essentials 4 on a new server
Config :
ML330 G6 1 x Xeon 5504
4GB
RAID1 250GB SATA on HP P410 with 512MB cache and BBU Unit Raid card
Default proxmox install 1.5 with 2.6.18 and apt-get update and upgrade , I didn't save the pveperf but the bogomips was around 16000 and fsync/s was around 2100 ( sata drives )
Proxmox :
The host give 101MB/s from RAID1 , I installled Windows 2008 x64 and Windows 7 x64 into VM and tried with IDE and VIRTIO and both one perform similar , they give me round 15Mb/s to 25MB/s HD Speed but virtio used less CPU so the VM's are more snappy , the downside is that you can't use unsigned drivers with 64 bits version of Windows and you need a Redhat Network account to received the signed and supported version ( 499$ )
VMware Essentials :
Don't know for the host but they used linux under the hood so probably around 100MB/s also , both Windows x64 give me around 50 to 60MB/s steady so there is a big difference with Proxmox/KVM and the VMware tools have signed drivers built-in ( 495$ currently ) , the downside of wmware is speed of client trough VPN almost unresponsive where Proxmox VNC was snappy and the backup need commercial solution where proxmox used built-in snapshot and schedule backup ( but snapshot d'oesn't support 2008 )
So at the end of the day Proxmox feel more powerfull with CPU emulation but the gap of disk performance completely kill the good things about it and the cost to obtain stable and supported drivers
from RedHat cost the same as VMware.
Config :
ML330 G6 1 x Xeon 5504
4GB
RAID1 250GB SATA on HP P410 with 512MB cache and BBU Unit Raid card
Default proxmox install 1.5 with 2.6.18 and apt-get update and upgrade , I didn't save the pveperf but the bogomips was around 16000 and fsync/s was around 2100 ( sata drives )
Proxmox :
The host give 101MB/s from RAID1 , I installled Windows 2008 x64 and Windows 7 x64 into VM and tried with IDE and VIRTIO and both one perform similar , they give me round 15Mb/s to 25MB/s HD Speed but virtio used less CPU so the VM's are more snappy , the downside is that you can't use unsigned drivers with 64 bits version of Windows and you need a Redhat Network account to received the signed and supported version ( 499$ )
VMware Essentials :
Don't know for the host but they used linux under the hood so probably around 100MB/s also , both Windows x64 give me around 50 to 60MB/s steady so there is a big difference with Proxmox/KVM and the VMware tools have signed drivers built-in ( 495$ currently ) , the downside of wmware is speed of client trough VPN almost unresponsive where Proxmox VNC was snappy and the backup need commercial solution where proxmox used built-in snapshot and schedule backup ( but snapshot d'oesn't support 2008 )
So at the end of the day Proxmox feel more powerfull with CPU emulation but the gap of disk performance completely kill the good things about it and the cost to obtain stable and supported drivers
from RedHat cost the same as VMware.