Host info:
Dell PowerEdge 6850
16Gig Ram
Windows 2k3 R2 x64 (all current updates)
4 x Quad-core 3Ghz processors (Total 16 cores)
VMWare Server ver. 1.03
(VMWare Server set to fit all VMs into actual memory)
This is a monster box that I get to assign to my QA/Dev team... However, I'm having a minor issue with the Memory trimming. It doesn't matter what Guest OS I use (2k3, Vista, XP) the performance settings seem to be ignoring the trimming option. I have the following in the .vmx files.
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
mainmem.usenamedfile = "FALSE"
MemTrimRate = "0"
*The rest is basic IDE/SCSI/Ethernet settings*
The Guest OS memory ranges from 512MB to 2GB. As QA virtuals, they will often sit idle for a day or two. If I watch the memory allocation, the total committed remains at the expected total of the VMs...However, the memory seems to be paged off and the VMs are terribly slow to respond until I see the memory reclaimed from disk. To my understanding, the above settings are supposed to stop VMWare from scaling the memory down, trimming, or sharing similar memory, however it isn't.
So, does anyone know of any issues why this may not be working? Any known conflicts with x86 Guests on x64 Host? Have I missed a setting? Do any of these 4 conflict?
Thanks...