People using Apple Macs for revision/labbing, I have a question or two....

Hi all,

As per title, I have a couple of questions for you.

1. What virtualisation software are you using on your Imacs or Macbooks? I have been looking at both Vmware Fusion 4 and Paralells 7 and haven't yet decided which one will be best.......any thoughts from anyone using either or both would be fantastic!

2. Does anyone solely use a Mac for all their revision needs? Reason I ask that is as follows. Currently I have an Imac I7 with 16 gig ram, this would of course easily be able to cope with running some Vm's. What I actually plan to do though (and again any opinions here gratefully received) is to install Win7 as a VM and then install vsphere client and use this to connect to my HP ML110 G6 which is running ESXI5. That will be my home stationary setup and when I am out and about I will use my Macbook and have some VM's on there for when I am not/cant be at home.

Hope that all makes sense. I am just running things over in my head and want to make sure I make the correct decisions.

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Comments

rwmidl

I'm running Virtual Box on my MBP. The primary VM I use is Win7. I upgraded to 8gb of RAM last year and allocate 4gb for the Win7 VM when I'm running it. I've run Win 8 as well with no issues.

wellnowwhat

I run VMWare and Virtualbox, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. I would suggest you stay away from Parallels, as I've found it to be an inferior product to both VMWare and Virtualbox. Virtualbox is great to use with things like GNS3, but VMWare is easy to setup and obviously if you're going for a VCP certification it would be good to get used to the VMWare system.

Just my two cents.

GOZCU

Vmware Fusion 4

antc

Thanks for the replies so far! Looks like VMware fusion is going to be the best bet......I have had a go with Fusion 3 so I am a little familiar with the product.

Anyone else have any thoughts or advice?

tprice5

VMWare Fusion. Need lots of ram.

Depending on what you are trying to lab through, you will likely need 2 running windows VMs ontop of the host OS. These will be needed for use in SCCM and AD labbing.

Goodluck with it.

the_Grinch

Before my Mac died, Fusion all the way!

QHalo

I'm using Virtualbox. Love it, works well for what I need it to do.

onesaint

Vmware fusion 4 on a 2010 Mac Pro. I can squeeze out 3-4 VMs comfortably. I haven't tested beyond that.

I also have a shuttle XPC that I was running ESXi 5 on. I have a Win 7 VM on the MacPro and used vsphere client on that. It ran well. VMware Fusion integrates nicely with the OS X interface and if you use spaces, your VM just becomes another desktop space.

A few months back I switched over the XPC to RHEL6 with KVM and Openstack, so I haven't been using the VMware stuff except for a few VMs on the Mac Pro. In a few months I'll be taking VMware vSphere ICM, so I will most likely install ESXi again.

nicklauscombs

vmware fusion.

antc

Looks like VMware Fusion 4 will be the way to go then.

Thanks everyone!!

chrisone

QHalo wrote: »

I'm using Virtualbox. Love it, works well for what I need it to do.

ditto! it works great and its free, cant complain.