Home Lab: Windows Server 2016 on a Desktop?

N7Valiant

Hi, I was wondering if you could run Windows Server 2016 as a virtual machine on a somewhat hi-spec PC that would otherwise be used for gaming?

My internet is kinda bad at 11 mbps down/ 1 mbps up, and there aren't much better options where I live, so doing anything extensive on CBT Nuggets virtual labs is kind of painful. So I was wondering if I could use an existing hi-spec machine (Intel i7-8500k, GTX 1080 Ti, 16 GB DDR4 RAM, 1 TB SSD) to run a virtual machine of Windows Server 2016 under the 180 day trial so I can tinker around with it. Not really making use of it as a server, but largely to practice Powershell among other things in an isolated environment without having to purchase dedicated server hardware.

I wasn't too sure if doing this would be bad for my machine, or if the caution against doing this is mostly intended for people who actually try to use their desktops as a functioning server.

stryder144

The short answer is that your machine is more than capable. I have a second gen i7 that is more than capable, so yours is more than enough, especially with DDR4 RAM and a 1TB SSD.

doubleo

It's a perfect setup for virtualization, put that 1TB SSD to use and enjoy labbing!

N7Valiant

Sounds good.

yoba222

In my labbing experiences when installing and running Windows Server, it tends to use about the same storage, memory, and CPU as its Windows 7/8/10 counterparts. It runs just fine on VirtualBox or similar.

Of course you'd bottleneck attempting to serve hundreds/thousands of users, but just don't turn on every service imaginable at the same time, which you wouldn't even do real-world anyways.

With a hyperthreaded 6-core and 16GB, you could probably spin up 5 server 2016 instances at the same time, perhaps 2 or 3 more even, as long as they're not all always at 100% CPU.

Microsoft suggests only minimum 1 core and 512MB of RAM!
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/system-requirements

N7Valiant

I think at most I might run a VM inside of the Server VM just to practice the use of Powershell, then shut that off before starting another one.

backtracker

You should be just fine for nested virtualization. I've personally ran the Desktop Experience on as little as 1024 and the Nano on 512.

poolmanjim

I actually tend to recommend this configuration to friends who can't afford or don't to buy a dedicated lab system. I have a i7-2700K with 16GB of DDR3 RAM and a dedicated VM HDD for when I want to tinker and don't want to put the effort into spinning a bunch of stuff up in my lab. The most noticeable trouble I have is when trying to run the VMs off the HDD and that is just because I'm used to SSD. I used that to cover many of my MCSA tests until I could afford a decent lab.

As far as wear is concerned, you will see some more wear on your components especially if you run them 24x7 in a lab setup. However, you're not going to see any more wear on your CPU, Memory, etc. from VMs than you would from playing a game. You may see a little more wear on an SSD due to the increased writes from the VM traffic, but even that isn't that big of a deal if you plan for it.

In short, you are more than safe to use your desktop for VMs.

jmanrta

Right now in virtualbox I am running 2 Windows Server 2012 R2 boxes (though one of them is core), a windows 2000 box, and a Windows 10 client all with no slowdown.

This is on a core i3 with 16 GB of RAM