Second Phase Planning - Multiple Considerations Discussion

Aereto_Compuru · January 7, 2017

Considering that my PC in my design plan is meant to deal with diverse tasks on top of gaming without being overly aggressive on costs, I end up with piles of information that need additional input before committing the plan. I'll have it spoiler'd for size. Current PC specs is linked in signature, but does not contain any Second Phase implementations that will only be reported upon completion.

Per technicality, I'm the only user using the device, but planning to be ready for more than one. With a Skylake non-k i7 and 32 GB of RAM, I doubt it will be a performance problem.

Spoiler

1 - Virtualization and Gaming (and others)

I understand that virtualization will require division of resources from the main pool used by the main OS, while providing security through proper containment and sandboxing configurations, yet I hold concerns with handling on programs in virtual machines that not only perform gaming, but also workstation ones on top of being remotely accessed by a computer over internet that may be planned to be possible via personal VPN (or any zero financial cost solutions).

I have a Win 7 Ultimate OS in the build in a M.2 drive for using all programs at home, and planning to have a Win Server on a separate M.2 carrying select programs for multi-remote use management and virtualization with access to the same RAID 1 drive Win 7 uses on top of having a separate drive to store all virtual machines that will be subjected to gaming and workstation stuff, but probably not server.

My concern: Will virtualization meet the demands I am likely to put it into?

Spoiler

2 - Linux

This will be a quick one. I am more exposed to Windows than Linux, but I also have interests in using Linux once in a while for learning and increasing my familiarity, as my field of study is in information systems, meaning that encountering different operating systems is inevitable. I can virtualize Linux if I want to, yet I am also thinking about having a separate Linux drive, fully isolated from the other drives. It may be subjected to the same proof-of-concept vigors as the Windows counterpart, including gaming, workstation, and server roles with access to the 2 GPUs planned to be installed (RX 480 at x16 speed already installed, WX 5100 at x4 speed yet to be procured), and other PCIe devices, especially the WiFi card.

Given the user needs, should I have the planned Linux OS to have its own drive and boot, or have it as a virtual machine on that same separate drive? I'll deal with HDD or SSD choices if I decide to run Linux natively.

Spoiler

3 - HDD or SSD for the virtual machine partitions

My fun part. Should I use a hard drive or a solid-state drive, given the above circumstances?

HDDs are cheap, but SSDs are reliable and fast. I already have a 3TB RAID 1 array that I could use to back up the images or snapshots, though I may have to increase the array's capacity by replacing the 3 TB HDDs with something larger while using HGST brand for best investment into hard drive reliability. (I should be backing up images of my M.2 and SSD that I have via Windows 7's built-in function, now that I think about it.)

leadeater · January 7, 2017

1. Don't virtualize the gaming OS, do that directly on the hardware and use that OS to run the VMs. Use the Hyper-V role of Windows, not in Windows 7 however.

2. If you want to test out gaming on the linux OS then I would say yes use a dedicated disk or partition for it.

3. Use an SSD to host VMs and their virtual system drive. You can place virtual data drives on an HDD e.g. VM C: on SSD and D: on HDD. HDDs are really bad at running multiple VMs and will quickly start to show performance issues as you run more than 2.

Aereto_Compuru · January 8, 2017

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

1. Don't virtualize the gaming OS, do that directly on the hardware and use that OS to run the VMs. Use the Hyper-V role of Windows, not in Windows 7 however.

2. If you want to test out gaming on the linux OS then I would say yes use a dedicated disk or partition for it.

3. Use an SSD to host VMs and their virtual system drive. You can place virtual data drives on an HDD e.g. VM C: on SSD and D: on HDD. HDDs are really bad at running multiple VMs and will quickly start to show performance issues as you run more than 2.

1. I'll take note of that. The planned Windows Server OS would end up virtualizing certain games an programs that a console controller or laptop can use remotely.

2. As I plan to do a bit of solo game development on the side, a dedicated drive for Linux to boot would be considered, though may use HDD to keep costs reasonable. Of course, sharing files between Linux and Windows file systems would be the next step.

3. The RAID 1 array can act as the data storage partition, while the Server SSD M.2 is likely to have only 256 GB capacity may only tolerate about 1-2 VMs. HDD capacity for the array increase won't be happening within a few years, as 3TB may be fine, though the content creation role will make up much of the capacity.