We're currently looking at options to replace some old remote work machines. We have several remote employees who RDP into Windows 10 machines, but 8 of these machines are too outdated to upgrade to Windows 11. Although theoretically, employees could use their personal computers, we prefer that they continue accessing a dedicated work machine through RDP for various reasons. Our simplest option would be to just buy new PCs to replace the old ones, but we're also considering a virtual solution since our workers will never be returning to the office. Some of us have experience with tools like VirtualBox, but moving to something like Hyper-V for multiple users would be a new venture for us. We're thinking about building two servers to host 4 VMs each, which would allow us to run up to 8 VMs in case of a failure. We're looking at hardware with 128GB RAM and 4TB NVMe, allocating 16GB and 500GB to each VM. Our CPU choice is an i7-14700. Is it a bad idea to use consumer-grade hardware, or will that lead to a poor experience for our users? Are there other options we should explore?
2 Answers
You might want to look into Azure Virtual Desktop or something like Desktop as a Service. It could simplify your infrastructure and be more reliable, especially for a small team like yours.
Honestly, I'm not sure why you're planning to run 4 VMs when I only need 1 VM for 15 users on Hyper-V. It might be overkill for your setup. Have you considered just streamlining the number of VMs?
That's a good point! I hadn't fully considered the benefits of offloading to cloud-based services.