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Is there any advantage to having more than 16 GB RAM on a Windows developer machine?

Is there any advantage to having more than 16 GB RAM on a Windows developer machine?

Assuming a machine (Dual Quad Core Xeon (2.26 GHz) with 24 GB RAM) running Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V. How many VMs can I expect to run at the same time with good performance?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 394
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"It depends which version of Windows you're using. Here's some info:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

64-bit Windows Vista Business and above, and 64-bit Windows 2008 Server Standard and above should be able to address the RAM."
Guest [Entry]

"Since each VM ""owns"" it's own memory in Hyper-V the number of VMs you can actively host is bounded by the available RAM. So can't really have too much.

Of course the biggest speed bottle neck on a dev machine is the hard drive. With the extra ram you could set yourself up a RAM drive which could have a huge performance benefit."
Guest [Entry]

You won't have any problem addressing that RAM, you might be able to get away with 20 GB but at this point you might as well get the extra 4 GB. Why are you doing this on a developer machine? Unless you are a one-man show there should be a central server that handles stuff like this.
Guest [Entry]

"If your scenario is about server + clients a multi machine setup would be better for simulation, and cheaper. VMs actually aren't the same as native OSs, threading and profiling are broken so you'll be quite off target, and worse won't actually be able to profile accordingly.

My 2 cents"