# Virtual pc 2007 vs Vmware 6.x (load time results)... which is better in general..



## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

I did a comparison of these two products to see how they performed...

My base system is a Dell Precision 390 with 4gb of ddr2 667mhz ram, Core 2 2.13GHZ cpu, virtualization turned on, SataII western digital 160gb harddrive for the storage location (OS is sataII seagate):

Load/boot times are from the initial VMware bios screen till a prompt to login, from a "differencing/clone" image off the network location via gigabit, with differencing files stored on the wd harddrive locally.


x86 Vista RTM load times:
VPC2007:
average load time was 1min 27s

VMware 6.x:
average load time was 48s

x64 vista rtm:
VPC2007:
load time 55 seconds (about 7 seconds slower than x86, worth noting)


At least on load times, it seems Vmware wins out here. I also like the functionality better with Vmware, virtual networks etc. With virtual pc, to get virtual networks, you must install Virtual Server 2005, which to me, felt very slugish and non-intuitive.

So I'm wondering, if everyone else has found Vmware to be the better product thus far, especially since it will run x64 as a guest OS.

How does Vmware compare speed/abilities to Parallels?


----------



## abhishekkksvt (Jul 17, 2007)

I have not worked much on VMware, but as far as my knowledge is concerned. VMware is the best option for server consolidation and virtualisation.

Thanks


----------



## kinbard (Jul 1, 2006)

I use vmware server, vpc, and virtual box, and I do find that vmware is quicker in most instances. I did have issues trying to load certain os's that I did not have with vpc, but that was negligable.


----------



## HitokiriMage (Feb 11, 2008)

Load time results are much better on VMware 6. VPC 2007 is a hog.

To me, VPC is a cheaper solution, but I ended paying more for VMware 6.

VMware 6 has the ability of "snapshots". You can create snapshots of the state of the virtual machine and revert back to it at any time.

Also, Vmware offers tools like Vmware converter to allow you to convert a OS like Win2003 and load it on your Vmware workstation.

Vmware is way ahead of the game at the moment. 

Microsoft is coming out with Hyper-V which is a competitor to Vmware ESX (great technology). ray: to ESX


----------



## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

HitokiriMage said:


> Load time results are much better on VMware 6. VPC 2007 is a hog.
> 
> To me, VPC is a cheaper solution, but I ended paying more for VMware 6.
> 
> ...


Yeah.. i ran PerformanceTest v6.1 tests on both.. 

In short.. If you set both Vmware and VPC to use "IDE", Vmware still beats VPC by 15%, but if you set Vmware to SCSI and of course VPC is stuck at IDE, as it has no scsi ability.. then Vmware beats VPC by 32%!

I get very similar performance when it comes to Virtual Server 2005 R2 sp1 (using SCSI) and running Vmware Workstation v6x with SCSI and a server instance there..

Yeah hyperV should be even better, but they still dont appear to be supporting USB which is a major bummer for applications like USB hasp keys dongles..

So on the server side, we are actually sticking with MS Vserver for now.. workstation side, I'd rather stick with Vmware, though activation is much easier to deal with going from workstation to workstation with VPC, whereas with Vmware workstation you end up having to reactivate if you move that virtual instance to a different workstation.


----------

