Best version of vmware for home server?

dekez · 26 Nov 2010 at 19:26

Hey all

I've got a windows home server that is currently running vmware workstation to run 2 servers that I use to study.

I always remote into the study servers so never need to use the workstation interface other than to start them up, but I find that when I remote into my home server the player always shows no machines running, even though there are 2 running. Not much of a pain generally but it means if I need to edit the machine settings I can't unless I shutdown everything.

I was considering giving vmware server ago, but before I uninstalled workstation I though I'd check with you lot, as I'm pretty new to virtual machines, what would be the best version in this situation - using remote desktop to access all the machines, including the server the vmware is on?

Ideally I guess I would want to have them running as a service on the whs and have a web interface were I could stop / start the machines and change the settings, not sure how to do this though!

Cheers

DJDaz · 26 Nov 2010 at 22:16

dekez said:
Ideally I guess I would want to have them running as a service on the whs and have a web interface were I could stop / start the machines and change the settings, not sure how to do this though!

Cheers

That's exactly how it works with vmware server. That's what i have installed on my server. It's Server 2003 though not WHS but can't see that being a problem.

dekez · 26 Nov 2010 at 22:17

Excellent, thanks Daz I'll give it a go then.

Raumarik · 26 Nov 2010 at 22:55

Ever thought of installing ESXi and hosting both VMs on it? You'll get better performance out of them if you aren't using WHS to actually serve anything (I seem to see that a lot these days!) Vsphere is an ace control interface for them

paradigm · 27 Nov 2010 at 10:06

I'd go for ESXi too in this scenario. Or even Xen.

IAmATeaf · 27 Nov 2010 at 17:57

On an aside are there any reviews of how the different free versions compare in terms of performance?

I've been using a paid for copy of VMWare Workstation 5.x for years and am wondering if things have moved and if the free products offer better performance. Took a quick eval look at VMWare Workstation 6.x and boy was that full of bloat, made my VMs lag too.

robinbredin · 27 Nov 2010 at 18:50

IAmATeaf
On an aside are there any reviews of how the different free versions compare in terms of performance?

I've been using a paid for copy of VMWare Workstation 5.x for years and am wondering if things have moved and if the free products offer better performance. Took a quick eval look at VMWare Workstation 6.x and boy was that full of bloat, made my VMs lag too.

There is a version 7, but there is little to no difference between the two, and not worth paying out the money.