Thinkpad for VM/Virtualbox usage

Greetings everyone.

Looks like my current machine doesnt' really like to play much with VMs... CPU gets overloaded... and I don't have enough memory.

Is there anyone here that uses any kind of VM often and thinks that it's working well for him?

I would consider going with W510 if I would have an option to choose an integrated GPU, I hate to pay for something that I don't need, especially that amount of money...

In the same time I'm not sure that T510 with 620M would be enough for me...

Any thoughts on this?

Thank you in advance.

 

I have a W510 and I use Windows XP in a VM for AutoCAD Mechanical and a couple of other similar apps that do not play nice with Windows 7 64 bit. When running it on my desktop I always had issues due to limited RAM. The W510 allows you to have 16 GB which I have and it runs very well. I have not had any trouble. Whether or not it would be overkill for you, IDK, but I simply relish the power I have on hand with this rig.

 

16gb seems like heaven on a laptop for VMs. But I need a wuxga screen what laptops have 1920x1200 resolution and 16gb ram?

 

My T410 has the 620m. I have 8GB RAM and typically run 1 or 2 VM. I have 4 and switch between them. I can run 3 at the same time but this uses almost all 8GB.

From a performance perspective it runs fine, other than starting and stopping which takes a while to load into memory from disk. I think with an SDD it would be perfect, but of course I need lots of HDD space to host the VMs. One day!

I guess it partly depends what you want to run in your VM... I run dev tools like SQL and VS2008. They work fine.

What I like best is the power in this size... a 14" laptop is great for traveling and if I wanted any more performance, I'd get a desktop.

 

Thanks for sharing. I was intending to run at least 2 VMs in the same time... so looks like T510 620m may work after all...

Thanks!

 

The transition from WUXGA to FHD was not as bad as I envisioned. You lose pixels at the bottom but gain width. It would be nice to get those 120 pixels back but the market is trending 1080, what can you do?

 

I think for VM's you need at least 8GB RAM to make it run smoothly, especially as you said you be running 2 at the same time. I use VMWare on my desktop with a standard E6550 C2D & 8GB RAM running Windows 7 64 bit as host and Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP (assigned 2GB RAM each) running simultaneously in the background as guests and I don't notice any lag between them. Normally it can run up to 6GB/8GB RAM on my system which is just enough under my experience. So I think the 4GB RAM you got at the moment is a big bottleneck for your VM as it will revert to disk caching to make up the lack of RAM which overall can be slow as you found out.

A new processor can help but having more RAM and bumping up the allocation on your guest OS' can help improve VM performance significantly.

 

It's good to know. Thank you.

 

There are several. ThinkPad W510, HP Elitebook 8540w, Dell Precision M6500 (up to 32GB and 17" screen), and the Dell Precision M6400.

I have the W510 with 16GB, T410 with 8GB, T400 with 8GB and T61p with 8GB.

Digging the new W510. It rocks.

 

The W510 does not meet the 1200 pixel vertical requirement. I am not sure about the others.

 

Using a x201 for VMware and VirtualBox without any issues. Very snappy response, even when running multiple guests.

 

Requirement? Have you looked at laptop LCDs in the past 12 months? Everyone moved to the lame 1080.

 

It's not my requirement, the OP wants 1200 vertical. I HAVE A W510 because i am a realist...

 

If by OP you meant me, than I'm sorry I made that impression. No, I'm not looking for 1200 vertical... I'm pretty happy with my 1680x1050. I think FHD would be too small... unless I'll try one and change my mind

 

Sorry... It was actually Jedisurfer1 that mentioned the 1200 vertical pixels. I need to pay more attention...

 

What do you do on your vm? I have an x200t with SL9400 which I force to run at 800mhz to save battery. I have a XP VM working very smoothly with virtualbox. I use the VM for MS streets and maps 2007 since it won't work on windows 7.

 

I was planning to have linux guests with java applications running on them. I also would like to have 2 VM running in the same time.

 

1680x1050 is my fav res on the 15.4 screen. I now use the W510 with the FHD 1920x1080 screen. Even though I called it lame, it isn't. I'm still experimenting with the native res, and setting the DPI to 110 or 115%. It's starting to look like 115 may be the winner.