[SOLVED] Setup for virtualisation

[PYTHAGORE59]

Hello, I have an old setup so after verifying closely, I won't upgrade it but make it again from scratch.

My main purpose is virtualisation of virtual phones (android & ios) and mac os virtual computer. I'd also like to use adobe software without lags (photoshop, premiere etc.)
Forget about gaming, it's not my purpose at all.

I will build the config by myself but I can't find examples of setups I could base me on. I've heard of PAO, I don't know if it could help me?

I'd like a setup with 16gb, however when I'm looking for other components I'm fastly lost choosing the ones that would fit with my purpose (for ~600€). So, if you can head me toward a steup or something that could help me, don't hesitate!

Have a nice day

 

[punkncat]

Hello, welcome.
I am sure some folks will have a lot of suggestions for you in that price range. Keep in mind that AMD/Ryzen don't come with virtualization on by default. I believe it's called SVM in the BIOS and will have to be enabled to run the virtual machines.

I had to laugh a bit at myself. I took French for 3 years back in high school (long ago) and seeing your text brought back loads of memories...lol, it was like trying to read French.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hello, I have an old setup so after verifying closely, I won't upgrade it but make it again from scratch.

My main purpose is virtualisation of virtual phones (android & ios) and mac os virtual computer. I'd also like to use adobe software without lags (photoshop, premiere etc.)
Ainsi que pouvoir utiliser les logiciels adobe (photoshop, adobe premiere etc.)
Forget about gaming, it's not my purpose at all.

I will build the config by myself but I can't find examples of setups I could base me on. I've heard of PAO, I don't know if it could help me?

I'd like a setup with 16gb, however when I'm looking for other components I'm fastly lost choosing the ones that would fit with my purpose (for ~600€). So, if you can head me toward a steup or something that could help me, don't hesitate!

Have a nice day

Do you plan on running the virtualization on top of Windows (Hyper-V or VMware Workstation) or the computer will be your host (VMware vSphere or Proxmox)?

 

[USAFRet]

16GB is a bit slim for a system based around virtualization.
8GB dedicated to a VM only leaves 8GB for the host.

 

[jeremyj_83]

16GB is a bit slim for a system based around virtualization.
8GB dedicated to a VM only leaves 8GB for the host.

Depends on if this is Type 1 or Type 2 virtualization.

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

Hello, welcome.
I am sure some folks will have a lot of suggestions for you in that price range. Keep in mind that AMD/Ryzen don't come with virtualization on by default. I believe it's called SVM in the BIOS and will have to be enabled to run the virtual machines.

I had to laugh a bit at myself. I took French for 3 years back in high school (long ago) and seeing your text brought back loads of memories...lol, it was like trying to read French.

Thanks for you help
I don't understand how you know I'm French, I thought my English was good haha

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

Do you plan on running the virtualization on top of Windows (Hyper-V or VMware Workstation) or the computer will be your host (VMware vSphere or Proxmox)?

Do you plan on running the virtualization on top of Windows (Hyper-V or VMware Workstation) or the computer will be your host (VMware vSphere or Proxmox)?

The computer will be the host. I used to use Virtual Machine, I haven't checked yet what are the differences for mac os

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for you help
I don't understand how you know I'm French, I thought my English was good haha

"Ainsi que pouvoir utiliser les logiciels adobe (photoshop, adobe premiere etc.) "
...was sort of a giveaway.

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

16GB is a bit slim for a system based around virtualization.
8GB dedicated to a VM only leaves 8GB for the host.

Do you think I'd rather take 32gb?
Actually, I just want to use a mac os vm on it so I don't have to buy a real mac to test my code on ios virtual devices

 

[USAFRet]

Do you think I'd rather take 32gb?
Actually, I just want to use a mac os vm on it so I don't have to buy a real mac to test my code on ios virtual devices

I would.

 

[jeremyj_83]

The computer will be the host. I used to use Virtual Machine, I haven't checked yet what are the differences for mac os

16GB RAM will be a little light depending on how many VMs are running at once, but it is doable. Here is a setup that is around what you are looking at spending. The 120GB SSD is for your hypervisor and then the 500GB SSD is your datastore for all your VMs. Ideally you would have a RAID 1 configuration for both your hypervisor and datastore but that isn't easy to do on your budget.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€121.26 @ Amazon France)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€78.99 @ Cdiscount)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 560 - 1024 4 GB AERO ITX Video Card (€117.85 @ TopAchat)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case (€46.85 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€84.85 @ TopAchat)
Total: €622.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-06 18:15 CEST+0200

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

16GB RAM will be a little light depending on how many VMs are running at once, but it is doable. Here is a setup that is around what you are looking at spending. The 120GB SSD is for your hypervisor and then the 500GB SSD is your datastore for all your VMs. Ideally you would have a RAID 1 configuration for both your hypervisor and datastore but that isn't easy to do on your budget.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€121.26 @ Amazon France)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€78.99 @ Cdiscount)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 560 - 1024 4 GB AERO ITX Video Card (€117.85 @ TopAchat)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case (€46.85 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€84.85 @ TopAchat)
Total: €622.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-06 18:15 CEST+0200

Thanks a lot for your time,
sorry but it's the first time I hear about raid 1, but it seems to be an interesting solution. Do you think it could be better with 700€?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks a lot for your time,
sorry but it's the first time I hear about raid 1, but it seems to be an interesting solution. Do you think it could be better with 700€?

Be careful in your expectations of what RAID 1 does.
It is for physical drive redundancy, not data redundancy.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Thanks a lot for your time,
sorry but it's the first time I hear about raid 1, but it seems to be an interesting solution. Do you think it could be better with 700€?

In a production system at least your datastores will be in a RAID 1 so that if you lose a drive you can still function until the drive can be replaced. Your hypervisor drive should not have any data on it other than the hypervisor. If using HDD it should be in a RAID 1, with enterprise SSD it can go either way. I recently had to reinstall my hypervisor on a vSphere host. I was using enterprise grade M.2 SSD and there isn't a 2nd M.2 slot on the board and went with a single point of failure. During the time period you expect a new SSD to fail, I had 1 out of 4 hosts with the same configuration lose its SSD.
A more robust alternative would be along these lines but you can remove the extra 120GB SSD if wanted.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€121.26 @ Amazon France)
Motherboard: MSI B450-A PRO MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€104.85 @ TopAchat)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 560 - 1024 4 GB AERO ITX Video Card (€117.85 @ TopAchat)
Case: Zalman S3 ATX Mid Tower Case (€45.85 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€84.85 @ TopAchat)
Total: €747.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-06 18:46 CEST+0200
As @USAFRet said, RAID 1 is only drive redundancy. That means you can lose a drive and not lose the data/uptime. You will have to replace the bad drive, but the array will rebuild itself to fault tolerance again. RAID 1 is NOT a backup solution.

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

In a production system at least your datastores will be in a RAID 1 so that if you lose a drive you can still function until the drive can be replaced. Your hypervisor drive should not have any data on it other than the hypervisor. If using HDD it should be in a RAID 1, with enterprise SSD it can go either way. I recently had to reinstall my hypervisor on a vSphere host. I was using enterprise grade M.2 SSD and there isn't a 2nd M.2 slot on the board and went with a single point of failure. During the time period you expect a new SSD to fail, I had 1 out of 4 hosts with the same configuration lose its SSD.
A more robust alternative would be along these lines but you can remove the extra 120GB SSD if wanted.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€121.26 @ Amazon France)
Motherboard: MSI B450-A PRO MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€104.85 @ TopAchat)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Crucial BX500 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€28.49 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€71.98 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 560 - 1024 4 GB AERO ITX Video Card (€117.85 @ TopAchat)
Case: Zalman S3 ATX Mid Tower Case (€45.85 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€84.85 @ TopAchat)
Total: €747.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-06 18:46 CEST+0200
As @USAFRet said, RAID 1 is only drive redundancy. That means you can lose a drive and not lose the data/uptime. You will have to replace the bad drive, but the array will rebuild itself to fault tolerance again. RAID 1 is NOT a backup solution.

Don't you think it would be better if I remove 1 hdd and 1 ssd and go with 32gb ram? (as I can use my external ssd to store the extra data?)
By the way, will I get extra charges with vSphere or it's fully free?

 

[jeremyj_83]

Don't you think it would be better if I remove 1 hdd and 1 ssd and go with 32gb ram? (as I can use my external ssd to store the extra data?)
By the way, will I get extra charges with vSphere or it's fully free?

Going with 32GB RAM and just 1x120GB & 1x500GB SSDs will work as well. Make sure that you have good backups though. You can get free licenses for vSphere, just know that it comes with a 60 day trial license first and you will have to get the free license from VMware. This KB has some information on that https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2107518

 

[PYTHAGORE59]

Going with 32GB RAM and just 1x120GB & 1x500GB SSDs will work as well. Make sure that you have good backups though. You can get free licenses for vSphere, just know that it comes with a 60 day trial license first and you will have to get the free license from VMware. This KB has some information on that https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2107518

Thanks