VM server for compiling C++ code on multiple platforms

[SergeyB]

Hey everyone!

I got a few questions about VMs and sufficient hardware for running them.
I'm planning to build a small machine for the purpose of compiling C++ code on multiple platforms such as Windows, Linux etc.
The compiling process doesn't require much CPU performance and I'm thinking of running up to 3 simultaneous VMs on it using VMWare ESXi

 

How much RAM do you think 3 VMs would require on this machine performing occasional command line compiling?
SSD would probably be a benefit for booting up them all, right?
What minimum CPU would you recommend for this? I was thinking a Core i3-i5 would be quite enough since I read that VMs can share cores.

Should VMWare ESXi be good for this kind of build?
 

Budget: As low as possible, utilizing scraps would help

Country: Canada

Used for: Compiling C++ on multiple VMs

 

Thanks!
Cheers,
-Sergey.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, SergeyB said:

What minimum CPU would you recommend for this? I was thinking a Core i3-i5 would be quite enough since I read that VMs can share cores.

How fast do you want it to compile?

 

Id probalby go with ryzen, its normally a good amount faster for the price.

 

4 minutes ago, SergeyB said:

Should VMWare ESXi be good for this kind of build?

Id personally go proxmox as its mor compatible with hardware and fully free, but esxi should work.

 

5 minutes ago, SergeyB said:

How much RAM do you think 3 VMs would require on this machine performing occasional command line compiling?

How much ram do a single system need? Budget a gig or two per vm for the os, and then add athe amount the program needs

 

 

Do you mind used? A used server would probalby be faster for the price, look up used dell servers like a r720

[brob]

NVMe SSD will make a real difference as compiles and links can be i/o intensive.

 

Unless the build environment used supports multithreading, count one core per VM.

 

I would suggest at least 8GB of memory per VM. More would likely offer better performance. 

[SergeyB]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! And sorry for the late reply...
I'll be figuring this out soon enough!  

[SergeyB]

UPDATE:

 

So I ended up going with proxmox for my base platform. Thank you @Electronics Wizardy for that suggestion! I wasn't familiar with it but I love it now!

My hardware is an HP USFF machine with a Core i5 3rd gen, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250GB SSD.
The SSD is showing to be the most crucial component for this build, since there's more need for responsiveness of each OS than the CPU performance since the tasks they execute don't require much processing power and only depend on architecture and the OS's kernel.
2.5GB of RAM for each VM seems to be on the edge of saving money while getting exactly what I needed.

 

Thank you very much everyone for the support!
Cheers!

-Sergey.