VMM on DS920+, anyone?

[oRBIT]

Has any lucky owner of the DS920+ been able to try running Windows10 in VMM? It's insanely slow on my DS918+ (the VMM is even running from an SSD), would be interesting to see if it's usable on the new model..

 

[Rusty]

I wouldn’t hold my breath

 

[rolandrat]

Really need NAS with Xeon's in, Xeon D-1521 in my RS runs 3 x Win10 VM's fine for me. Not cheap tho.

 

[wycs45]

I have a DS920+, bought it from Amazon on Prime day, tried the VMM, it sucks.... mouse is laggy, everything is very very slow, I get it that the RAM usage is always almost 90% since I only have 4G RAM, but I don't understand why in the task manager, the disk usage is always almost 100%. Have been searching a lot on the internet, lots of people loaded 8G RAM and even run it in SSD, still not much improvement.

I think Synology only uses this VMM feature as marketing term, and the dream that I could get an amazing experience by purchasing the most powerful model in the plus series, which is DS920+, now goes to the drain....

 

[Shadow]

I have a DS920+, bought it from Amazon on Prime day, tried the VMM, it sucks.... mouse is laggy, everything is very very slow,

I think Synology only uses this VMM feature as marketing term, and the dream that I could get an amazing experience by purchasing the most powerful model in the plus series, which is DS920+, now goes to the drain....

If running virtual Windows machines with a GUI was your primary requirement, than you should not have gone for a Synology DiskStation. A Synology Rackstation as @rolandrat said will do but the Hypervisor technology on DiskStations just isn't that great for Windows.

I myself am running non-GUI Ubuntu servers in VMM and I'm very happy with it. If I want to run Windows servers, I'd prefer look for hardware that can run VMWare ESXi. Even though I would install Windows Server Core edition (no GUI).

 

[Rusty]

I have a DS920+, bought it from Amazon on Prime day, tried the VMM, it sucks.... mouse is laggy, everything is very very slow, I get it that the RAM usage is always almost 90% since I only have 4G RAM, but I don't understand why in the task manager, the disk usage is always almost 100%. Have been searching a lot on the internet, lots of people loaded 8G RAM and even run it in SSD, still not much improvement.

I think Synology only uses this VMM feature as marketing term, and the dream that I could get an amazing experience by purchasing the most powerful model in the plus series, which is DS920+, now goes to the drain....

Would agree with @Shadow. A while back I did some tests on the previous generation of 920 NAS models (718/918, same CPUs). They are, on paper, marginally slower regarding the CPU, but have them loaded with RAM and all SSD setup.

I have run them against my RS model on VMM tests with 2 separate Windows instances.

TL;DR - not even SSDs will have you and the main choke point, in that case, will be the CPU.

More here - DS718+ all-flash VMM speed tests

Also, I do hope you are running that VM and accessing it via RDP and not the web console? Via RDP it will be decent but not even close to what the RS lineup (or better can offer). The fact that 920 can run VMs doesnt mean it should.

Again what @Shadow said, some non-UI VMs will run just fine, in fact they will run great.

 

[wycs45]

Thanks a lot for your reply. The reason why I had the impression was because I bought a DS218+ about 3 years ago, been happy using it, and that one was already VMM available according to Synology, but I never had the chance to do it because I did not buy the additional RAM.

Now that the DS920+ is available with three times benchmark higher than 218+, so I thought even 218+ was VMM available, then the 920+ should be super smooth. And now I understand it is impossible. Anyway, That is just a function I thought would be amazing if I can use, but it's OK if I can't, because I found a lot of things can be done by Docker.

By the way, Synology just seriously seriously over priced on the RAM stick, I just can't imagine any people can sell RAM on that kind of price, not even apple. And now I understand for 920+, actually adding another 4G of RAM does not help a lot, so I decided not to buy it. It is literally rip off.

 

[GuiMSP]

The same machine but with 12Gb RAM.
We have tested VMM and Windows as we need at least one Windows 10 machine at every location. The GUI is not used and as long you did not looked at it, it went "fine". But we skipped that option for the same reason. Windows does take a lot more resources from a hypervisor (so, is it the fault of the hypervisor?)
Later we tested VMM for a Marketing Automation Program running on linux and had only a web interface. That went pretty smooth (but we took another approach that was not related to the performance). Saying so to confirm Shadows points on that. You can also use VMM for a virtual DSM. We use that in one realtime occasion where we need to harden the DSM big time and wanted to be able to use snapshots, etc. We have thoughts of going into that direction for all NAS implementations as it makes you more flexible. The other and unique situation where we use virtual DSM, is testing DSM7 without "hurting" the hardware. So, to end: VMM is a great product when you use it for what is was designed. Second ending remark: it is GREAT to use in combination with Active Backup 4 Business, but yes, you'd need a good equipped DS or RS.
On the memory: yes they do charge a lot. There are some places where they investigate or gather experiences on non-Synology memory. We have good experiences in that area, but test-test-test before it goes into production. The Q "When do you need more RAM?" (without VMM): If you only use some filesharing etc... hardly. But with apps like AB4B you can gain a lot in performances, more even in comparison to adding SSD-cache. On a RS needing ECC etc, not sure if I'd go for non-Synology memory. Gut-feeling. m2c

 

[Shadow]

Windows does take a lot more resources from a hypervisor (so, is it the fault of the hypervisor?)

Thanks a lot for your reply. The reason why I had the impression was because I bought a DS218+ about 3 years ago,

This post should give you a better insight on the Win10 VM performance.