Laptop hardware recommendations for multi-platform development

Question

I am thinking of buying a laptop with the following configuration - Intel core 2 duo(or I3-330M)/ 4GB RAM/300+ GB 7200 RPM. I would like to be able to run two server VMs on this laptop with Win2K8 and Ubuntu (preferably 64 bit editions). Windows 7 will be the Host OS since that is the one that ships with the laptop. I am thinking of using VMWare player to run the two server OSs. Is this laptop good enough to run the two VMs side by side or do I need to go for a better configuration? Any suggestions? Thanks.

Answer 1

I'd say you should look at more memory. They'll run in the 4 gig, but it would probably be happier with more. The answer also depends on what you're going to do...pressing these VM's heavily? Or are you just doing some minor things, hardly using them at all? Do you mean you're going to be testing a web application, net application, games,...what?

There are too many variables, really. Plus using a virtualizer like VMWare Player is really more for virtualizing one environment as a pseudo-workstation, not running servers (although I suppose it could work for that). Put it this way; if I have to run a server application on a network, I'd use ESXi on a dedicated machine or a dedicated small server, not keep VirtualBox or VMWare Player running on my system all the time. I know you're using it for development purposes and it should work, but really you're kind of shoehorning it, I feel, into a purpose it wasn't really designed for, running multiple servers on one host instead of using it for something like using Outlook while you're running Linux for example.