Drive size for virtual machines

Hi everyone! I'm setting up my test box HP DL385 (Freebie!). Just wondering how big the disk size should be on the virutal machines. I'm sure I'll have a couple Server2008R2 and of course a few Win7 (and sprinkle in a couple XP boxes to do something for work). I have 2 72GB drives that I'll mirror and then about 5 146GB drives. I'd like to make them big enough so they'll do what I need but not so big that I'm just eating up space and drives that aren't necessary. Thanks!

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demonfurbie

if you use virtualbox you can set your drives to dynamic size so they adjust themselves as needed

if not id say just use the min for installation of the os rounded up to the nearest 10 gig, say windows 7 requires 16 gig id set the drive for 20 gig

Everyone

Look at the minimum requirements, and start there. 40 GB is recommended for 2008 R2. Nice thing with 2008 R2 is you can easily expand your drives on the fly. So if you don't give it enough space, you can always add more space to your VM, then expand the drive in Windows.

vCole

Everyone wrote: »

Look at the minimum requirements, and start there. 40 GB is recommended for 2008 R2. Nice thing with 2008 R2 is you can easily expand your drives on the fly. So if you don't give it enough space, you can always add more space to your VM, then expand the drive in Windows.

Agreed. Also, if you're going with XP/Windows 2003 you can use gparted to easily expand the disk size.

Everyone

vCole wrote: »

Agreed. Also, if you're going with XP/Windows 2003 you can use gparted to easily expand the disk size.

Yes, gparted rocks... although you have to shutdown for a while to use it, which for a test lab shouldn't be an issue.

battlese

I have it set up as esxi 5. I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I wanted to make sure I didn't short myself and have to start all over again. Looks like I'll be able to expand it if necessary. I just didn't know how much it'll grow while going through the labs.

Everyone

Just use "Thin Provisioning" then to maximize your resources.