Visual Studio Performance Choice - ESXi or Vista?
Following on from my previous question, I ordered 300GB VelociRaptor and 8GB RAM for my home setup today (ASUS P5N-E with E6600 chip).
I want it to be fast in Visual Studio and flexible. I am considering either installing ESXi or then developing in Vista64 that runs on top of that, or I can install Vista64 without ESXi and run my VMs on top of that.
If ESXi can't handle the high performance, I'll be fine for this option as it is the most flexible. Hey, I can even give the kids their cars too ... not other accounts on my box.
If ESXi sucks performance, though, I'll run VMs on top of Vista and take the brunt of providing accounts for kids (casual use, they mostly use Lappie !!).
What do you think is the best version for me and have you tried it yourself?
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I would just install your operating system on bare metal, if this OS is Vista then so be it. Then, run your virtual machines on a VMware server or whatever tool you like, instead of installing your workstation on top of ESXi. This is not exactly what it is for. Server virtualization is virtualization of servers, not workstations. You won't have any 3D acceleration or anything, so it definitely won't be a strong home for Visual Studio.
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VMware ESXi is really meant for deploying server virtual machines, not workstation virtual machines. It doesn't have a console interface; any GUI access must be through RDC or VNC or X. While you can do it with Visual Studio, the performance will stink and Vista's performance will be concave.
With 8GB of RAM, you'll need a 64-bit OS (Linux or Vista). I would recommend VMware Workstation if you want console access to your guest VMs, or VMware Server if you want the guest VMs to start automatically when the host OS starts.
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