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I need to build a new server/super workstation for FEM calculations to replace current dual-boot solution, where either windows or unix is working at the time. This new unit is planned to have 24C/48T, 256GB RAM. As right now often resources are not used in 100% and I do not expect the situation to change, I would like to virtualize those two hosts. Problem is I am tight on the budget and the initial disk configuration was only 2x 1TB SATA 7.2 with no HW controller. I can present both drives to its corresponding VMs with no data redundancy but I am afraid of doing so. These machines mainly calucalate FEM. They do not use much of a disk I/O. We can afford adding a HW RAID controller to the configuration. Do you think 2 VMs on a SATA RAID 1 will allow a flawless symultanous usage of two somehow "desktop" virtual machines? Or its better to stay with no RAID each VM on a seperate drive, and just do backups more often? Or maybe non-HP SSD 120GB drives are worth considering? Please advise.

P K
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Do you think 2 VMs on a SATA RAID 1 will allow a flawless symultanous usage of two somehow "desktop" virtual machines?

It'll work fine though I'd need to understand your definition of 'flawless', and yes I would go with the HW RAID controller rather than just two disks to protect your data, make sure you get one that's on VMware's HCL so there'll be drivers for it ok. Oh and don't bother with the SSD's, it sounds like your applications wouldn't benefit too much with them.

Oh and bear in mind that the maximum number of vCPUs per virtual machine is 8 with the free version.

Chopper3
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  • Flawless means if I ve had two seperate machines and that server with VMWare we are talking about I would not tell the difference ;) OK, I will add HW RAID. H240 Smart Host Bus Adapter seems to be the value option I will look for. Its on HCL but in the HP documentation support in VMware is not listed. Thank you very much for your input about ESXi free supervisor. I will add Academic Essentials Kit to the config. – P K May 23 '16 at 16:10