Windows VM in KVM: Best Practices

[slam]

In addition to various OpenVZ containers in Proxmox, I'm running some guest OSes in KVM (Ubuntu and Windows 7). Ubuntu runs efficiently in KVM, although not as effectively as CT, but that's to be expected. Now on to Windows 7, it seems to be resource hungry and taking up about 95% of my allocated RAM, CPU seems okay (see image/attachment). I was wondering if there's any best practices for running Windows-based guest in KVM. Is there a way to force or clear memory when not in use? Should I go with more than 1 vCPU? Does Proxmox support dynamic memory? Is there a way to do linked-cloning, I'd like to reduce diskspace usage? Lastly, does Proxmox support memory overcommit?

 

[udo]

In addition to various OpenVZ containers in Proxmox, I'm running some guest OSes in KVM (Ubuntu and Windows 7). Ubuntu runs efficiently in KVM, although not as effectively as CT, but that's to be expected. Now on to Windows 7, it seems to be resource hungry and taking up about 95% of my allocated RAM, CPU seems okay (see image/attachment).

Hi,
thats normal would I say - Linux-VMs take also much ram if the do some IOs (as buffer).

I was wondering if there's any best practices for running Windows-based guest in KVM. Is there a way to force or clear memory when not in use? Should I go with more than 1 vCPU? Does Proxmox support dynamic memory? Is there a way to do linked-cloning, I'd like to reduce diskspace usage? Lastly, does Proxmox support memory overcommit?

Best practice for win: virtio-driver for disk, some used also for network (but therfore i use normaly e1000).
If your win-vm run well with 1 CPU don't changed it. With more than 1 CPU you loose IO-Performance (years ago very much, now it's ok).

Memory overcommiting is possible - ksm looks for same pages and free the doubled ones. But ksm take cpu-power and need time to work. Normaly is real ram better

Udo