Number of virtual machines that can be run simultaneously in VMware Workstation

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on how many virtual machines can be run simultaneously on a specific host machine.

Environment

VMware Workstation 3.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation Pro 12.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 5.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 5.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 4.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 3.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 4.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Pro 12.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)

Resolution

There are several factors that determine how many virtual machines can be run on a specific host machine. Because of this, it is not possible to directly specify how many virtual machines a given host can run at once. The factors can be roughly sorted in this order of importance:

Memory

• Each virtual machine requires some overhead memory to manage it, which means each uses a total of up to about 1.3 times the amount of memory (RAM) given in the virtual machine settings.
• Total virtual machine memory restrictions, for different versions of VMware Workstation:
  
  
  • 4.5.1 and earlier: a maximum of 1GB total available for all running virtual machines.
  • 4.52 - 5.5: a maximum of 4GB total available for all running virtual machines.
  • 6.x and later: No maximum limit for the total available for all virtual machines.

CPU

The number and speed of host machine CPUs determine the performance of multiple virtual machines.

Hard drive speed

The faster the drive on the host system, the better a virtual machine performs.

Host Operating System

At this time, a Linux host operating system seems to require less memory to run, and it seems to handle task switching better than Windows.

However, Windows host machines handle video redraw with better speed than Linux.

For more information, see the Using VMware Workstation guide.