I have a dual E5 2680V4 (24-core, 48-thread) workstation with 512G of RAM / 500G SSD (C drive) / 4T SSD (D drive). The OS cannot be installed on the D drive because the SSD is a weird model (Intel P3608 4T PCIE), on which ANY OS cannot be installed though which is very fast. So the windows 10 LTSC 2019 had to be installed on the C drive with 400 G of free space, and now I want to install an VMS (Ubuntu 18.0.4 LTS) in the newest Virtualbox 6.1.10. The VMS will be used to do scientific operation, it will takes up a long time and a lot of files will be generate, so the virtual disk is 3T. In this case, the virtual disk can only be deployed on D drive. My question are:
1. Although I put the virtual disk on D drive and even the Virtualbox program itself can be installed on D drive. But as we known that in Windows, when the Virtualbox program is running, some files (not files in the virtual disk) will writes to the C drive, When running this Ubuntu in VMS (each run is measured in week, and up to 2T temporary files will be generated in the virtual disk), in this conditions, whether the 400G of free space on the C drive will be filled up during the run, resulting in the failure?
2. I have to allocate as many as resources to the VMS, or else, the running will take many many time. Is the 24-core CPU and 512G RAM will be recognized by the latest Virtualbox 6.1.10 successfully and most resources can be allocated to Ubuntu and the running can be stable?
3. C drive is not fast (500MB/s), D drive is super-fast (5000MB/s). Because the Host of windows is on the C drive, does it will slow down the speed of the VMS, which on D drive?
4. Is this configuration, for this purpose (do scientific operation), appropriate for Host of Windows 10 LTSC 2019? Should I switch the host to the server version of windows?
Questions about the hardware configuration of virtual machines
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scottgus1
- Site Moderator
- Posts: 20945
- Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
- Primary OS: MS Windows 10
- VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
- Guest OSses: Windows, Linux
Re: Questions about the hardware configuration of virtual machines
Install Virtualbox in the default location, C:\Program Files\Oracle\Virtualbox. In the main Virtualbox window, File menu, Preferences, General, set Default Machine Folder to a folder on the D drive. Don't use the D drive root itself, since Windows keeps special restrictions on the root of a drive. When you make a new guest, it will go in this D drive folder.
1. The guest OS will only write its disk data into the folder on the D drive. Virtualbox writes one small global log for its own operation on the C drive. Some small guest logs get written in the guest folder on the D drive.Your C drive will not fill up from operation of Virtualbox or the guest.
2. It should be possible to allocate many of the host cores and much of the memory to the guest. Leave 2 cores and a few GB RAM for the host OS. As always, time will tell if trouble happens. Most issues can be fixed.
3. The C drive will not slow down the D drive.
4. Windows 10 should be fine. Use Professional, so you can turn off automatic update reboots with Group Policy Editor.
1. The guest OS will only write its disk data into the folder on the D drive. Virtualbox writes one small global log for its own operation on the C drive. Some small guest logs get written in the guest folder on the D drive.Your C drive will not fill up from operation of Virtualbox or the guest.
2. It should be possible to allocate many of the host cores and much of the memory to the guest. Leave 2 cores and a few GB RAM for the host OS. As always, time will tell if trouble happens. Most issues can be fixed.
3. The C drive will not slow down the D drive.
4. Windows 10 should be fine. Use Professional, so you can turn off automatic update reboots with Group Policy Editor.
Re: Questions about the hardware configuration of virtual machines
You've made me see things clearly. Thanks a lot.scottgus1 wrote:Install Virtualbox in the default location, C:\Program Files\Oracle\Virtualbox. In the main Virtualbox window, File menu, Preferences, General, set Default Machine Folder to a folder on the D drive. Don't use the D drive root itself, since Windows keeps special restrictions on the root of a drive. When you make a new guest, it will go in this D drive folder.
1. The guest OS will only write its disk data into the folder on the D drive. Virtualbox writes one small global log for its own operation on the C drive. Some small guest logs get written in the guest folder on the D drive.Your C drive will not fill up from operation of Virtualbox or the guest.
2. It should be possible to allocate many of the host cores and much of the memory to the guest. Leave 2 cores and a few GB RAM for the host OS. As always, time will tell if trouble happens. Most issues can be fixed.
3. The C drive will not slow down the D drive.
4. Windows 10 should be fine. Use Professional, so you can turn off automatic update reboots with Group Policy Editor.