Virtualization Adapted Adapting Business Processes for Virtual Infrastrcuture (and vice-versa)

2009/03/09

Overhead Memory Table on ESX Virtual Machines

Filed under: virtualization — Tags: , , , , — iben @ 13:46

Refer to page 30 of http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_resource_mgmt.pdf or page 136 of http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_resource_mgmt.pdf

Memory overhead usage chart

Memory overhead usage chart

Some examples:

With 1 vcpu and 256MB of RAM; the VM kernel requires 87MB for 32 bit VM’s and 108MB for 64 bit VM’s.

With 8GM of RAM and 1 vCPU you’ll need 188MB and 209MB for 32 and 64 bit.

With 4 vCPU’s and 8GB of RAM you’re looking at ~360MB for a 32 bit VM and 431MB for a 64 bit VM.

Note: memory overhead for 32-bit VMs generally increased between 3.0.1 and 3.5 while 64-bit overhead generally decreased.

ESX 3.5 Overhead

ESX
3.5 Update 2
Virtual CPUs Virtual Memory (MB) Overhead for 32-bit VM
(MB)
% Overhead for 32-bit VM Overhead for 64-bit VM
(MB)
% Overhead for 64-bit VM
1 256 87.56 34.20% 107.54 42.01%
1 512 90.82 17.74% 110.81 21.64%
1 1,024 97.35 9.51% 117.35 11.46%
1 2,048 110.40 5.39% 130.42 6.37%
1 4,096 136.50 3.33% 156.57 3.82%
1 8,192 188.69 2.30% 208.85 2.55%
1 16,384 293.07 1.79% 313.42 1.91%
1 32,768 501.84 1.53% 522.56 1.59%
1 65,536 919.37 1.40% 940.84 1.44%
2 256 108.73 42.47% 146.41 57.19%
2 512 114.49 22.36% 152.20 29.73%
2 1,024 126.04 12.31% 163.79 16.00%
2 2,048 149.11 7.28% 186.96 9.13%
2 4,096 195.27 4.77% 233.30 5.70%
2 8,192 287.57 3.51% 325.98 3.98%
2 16,384 472.18 2.88% 511.34 3.12%
2 32,768 841.40 2.57% 882.06 2.69%
2 65,536 1579.84 2.41% 1623.50 2.48%
4 256 146.75 57.32% 219.82 85.87%
4 512 153.52 29.98% 226.64 44.27%
4 1,024 167.09 16.32% 240.30 23.47%
4 2,048 194.20 9.48% 267.61 13.07%
4 4,096 248.45 6.07% 322.22 7.87%
4 8,192 356.91 4.36% 431.44 5.27%
4 16,384 573.85 3.50% 649.88 3.97%
4 32,768 1007.73 3.08% 1086.75 3.32%
4 65,536 1875.48 2.86% 1960.52 2.99%
Averages 408.30 11.51% 453.30 15.29%

ESX 3.0 Overhead

vcpu vRAM 32 bit overhead 64 bit overhead
1 256 79 174
1 512 79 176
1 1024 84 180
1 2048 91 188
1 4096 107 204
1 8192 139 236
1 16384 203 300
2 256 97 288
2 512 101 292
2 1024 101 300
2 2048 125 316
2 4096 157 349
2 8192 221 413
2 16384 349 541
4 256 129 511
4 512 133 515
4 1024 141 523
4 2048 157 540
4 4096 189 572
4 8192 222 605
4 16384 350 734

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