Gurus -- overhead of an IDLE W10 VM on a HOST system - any ideas

Hi there
just a question to any performance gurus

If you have a decent amount of RAM and adequate HDD space is there any noticeable overhead of having an idle W10 VM - or should one shut it down when finished with. By Idle I mean that a user is logged on but not doing anything.

I can't seem to get any decent stats on this. I know also that the latest versions of vmware workstation allow you to run the vm in the background too.

I actually like the idea of running VM's in the background and then logging on via RDP or VNC but would be really interested if these idle vm's cause any noticeable load on the HOST system. - Any measuring tools out there for this.

connected via KRDP from CENTOS -- VM running in background normally




Cheers
jimbo

Jimbo, doesn't Task Manager or Resource Monitor do it for you?
I have 3 VM's going on it the background on Hyper-V(latest insider build, Ubuntu(16.04), and Windows Server 2016 TP5) idling now(dynamic memory on) and no real overhead.
You're using VMWare? But the principal should be the same.

Jimbo, doesn't Task Manager or Resource Monitor do it for you?
I have 3 VM's going on it the background on Hyper-V(latest insider build, Ubuntu(16.04), and Windows Server 2016 TP5) idling now(dynamic memory on) and no real overhead.
You're using VMWare? But the principal should be the same.

Exactly. Your screenshots reveal that you have the idle vm windows closed at the moment (no vmconnect.exe processes running), meaning that the overhead is only the RAM assigned to them, no other host resources being used at the moment.

Hi there

Thanks folks.

I've loads of RAM on this particular machine (32 GB) so not a problem -- I'm currently in the process of switching away from vmware at the moment but the principle is the same. Also 480 GB SSD and 4 X 4 TB HDD's so no problem with Disk space either.

Thanks.


@Cliff S

BTW what do you think of Server 2016 - apart from Licensing issues I've heard good things about it.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there

Thanks folks.

I've loads of RAM on this particular machine (32 GB) so not a problem -- I'm currently in the process of switching away from vmware at the moment but the principle is the same. Also 480 GB SSD and 4 X 4 TB HDD's so no problem with Disk space either.

Thanks.


@Cliff S

BTW what do you think of Server 2016 - apart from Licensing issues I've heard good things about it.

Cheers
jimbo

I need to learn a bit more on how to use a server, but... I like the desktop UI it has, being less advanced on server stuff, and it installed blitz fast. I put it on a internal spinner, where as my Ubuntu & Insider build are on a 120GB SSD, but it still runs well and boots fast in a VM.

I use VMWare Workstation Pro. It has an option to run background VM's with low priority. Works great when my developer vm isn't in use.