Should i go native or with ESXi server

virtualizationvmware-esxiwindows-server-2003

At this moment, my server is a plain 64-bit amd, running windows 2003.
I wanted to run another virtualized OS on top of it using virtualbox.

Then I saw that vmware ESXi is free! I always ignored that because I thought it would be extremely expensive.

So, now in my mind I have this vision of the "as-fast-as-native" virtualization

Since I have to migrate to new hardware next week, do you think that reinstalling Windows 2003 on ESXi server would be a good idea?

What is better?

  1. Windows 2003 => vmware server => my other guest OS
  2. ESXi server => windows 2003 + other guest OS

Best Answer

As long as your hardware is supported on ESXi, and isn't not missing any features you want, go for that. No only is it faster for the guests, but it's incredibly stable, whereas running vmware server can only be as stable as the Windows install it's on, which leads to either an unpatched, unmaintainted host, or frequent downtime as you reboot the host to patch it. Enabling SSH on your ESXi machine, and using some of the ghetto scripts can add back features you need.

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