4. Lenovo Ideapad i3 

Cheap Laptop for Virtualization

  Intel Core i3-1215P

  8GB DDR4

  ‎Intel UHD Graphics

  512GB SSD

  14” HD

  3.02 lbs

  10 hours

    Wifi 6  

  Windows 11 S (Upgradeable to Windows 11 Home)

Q: What is the best MacBook For Virtualization ?

All MacBook are capable of virtualization. You only need to download the Mac Version of the hypervisor or virtualization software you want to use.  For ex: VM Fusion has a mac version.

Before you buy a macbook though, you have to calculate how many virtual machines you’re going to run and how much RAM you’re going to assign to each. Unlike Windows, MacBooks only need 2GB RAM to run well. So if your virtual machines are going to be OSX versions then think about assigning 2GB to each, the same can be said about linux which can even take less.

Now here’s the kicker, if you want to run Windows Virtual Machines, you have to buy a MacBook with a x86 processor that means none of the new MacBooks will work. 

Q: What about the M1 & M2 MacBooks, can they run virtual machines too? 

Yes, but they can only run OSX virtual machines and Linux Virtual machines. The new M1 & M2 CPUs are arm-based CPUs which are not supported by Windows, hence you cannot run a windows virtual machine on either.

Again, if you want a windows virtual machine running on a MacBook, you want to look at older models. A few example are shown below with the approx maximum number of Windows virtual machines you can run on each:

1VM : A MacBook Air will do (Old and New) . 
2VM-4: MacBook Pro 13” (Old and New) with at least 8GB RAM.
4VM-12VMs: MacBook Pro 15” with at least 16GB RAM. (Old)
+8VMs: 16” MacBook Pro (Old and New) 

How to Choose A Laptop For Virtualization

Instead of just giving you a big table stating what specs you need a specific number of VMs in an infographic, I think it’s more useful to go all over the computer jargon behind Virtual Machines while at the same time talk about the kind of hardware you need and how each  piece hardware contributes to the number of VMs you can run.

Also keep in mind that being able to run one VM doesn’t guarantee it’s going to run smoothly , it all depends on the kind of scripts & software you run on each of these.

If you are NOT new to the virtualization business thus you know the basic VM jargon, skip to the section  “Hardware Virtualization Specs”. 

1. VM Terminology

HyperVisor: This is the program ( script) that hosts and runs VMs. It creates a virtual processor, memory and storage and tricks the operating system (which is installed in your VM software) that this is all a new computer. 

VMWare ESXi: The name for a type of hypervisor  by VMware (entreprise class type-1 in technical terms) which is basically an operating system with its own kernel and which can host and run virtual machines.  This hypervisor by itself it’s not the full product software you can use like Oracle VM Box & VMWare workstation to run your VMs though. 

Kernel:  the program that’s in control of every piece of hardware in a computer.

KVM: (Kernel Virtual Machine). Name for the kernel on Linux OS. It makes your Linux Distro turn into a hypervisor (thus making it able to hold VMs). 

Domain Controller: This is where the server or computer controls what programs or entities get access to join the network and use its resources . Basically the network security pillar.

Virtualization Software (Ex: VMWare Workstation): common name for the full software package that lets you instal land run VMs.  As of 2023, you can run Mac OSX, Chrome OSX, Linux OS and Windows OS virtual machines on windows laptops.

VMware Fusion: the most popular virtualization software for Macs.

Firmware: common name for the tool which gives you access to change a few parameters of the hardware of every PC. Ex: of the  This is exactly what allows you switch the booting device (from the hard drisk drive to perhaps a CD-ROM) when you want to run a different OS or install a new OS.

Another used term for it is “BIOS”. You usually see either of these or both names right after you boot up your machine. 

VPN:  This term has NOTHING to do with VMs, it stands for Virtual Private Networks. It’s what basically people use to get access to a server (or website) that’s restricted access to some regions.  The name is also used for software that will let you access your own computer from any other computer. Ex: Anydesk.

Why is the term useful here then ? 

PenTesting: because it is a common term thrown around VM forums.

Also, it is a term widely used by penn testers especially those running Virtual machines when they want to simulate a VPN or any other type of network for security testing which at the end all have the same goal: test the weak and strong points in a before launch network. 

VT:   terminology used by Intel to describe the technology embedded in their processors to run VMs. They’re just special instructions (similar to hyper threading) which makes the processor more efficient when running VMs.  Virtually every CPU post 2006 will come with VT instructions set but if you’re buying  or using old hardware you found on a basement, you can check whether it is “VT” capable or not in this Intel website Page. 

Hyper-V: A native hypervisor natively installed in most modern machines. If it’s activated, no VM software will be able to run. Thus it must be de-activated (it usually is by default) before you run VM software.

If you find out you’re getting errors when launching VM software, it is probably due to Hyper-V being enabled. When it is enabled, hyper-V will occupy a space called “VT-x” and this is the space that Virtualizatyion software use to run. You can read more about it  here.

This is because if VT-x is enabled (whatever that is), hyper V will “occupy” VT-x.

2. Virtualization FAQ

Now that you’ve got a good grasp of the jagon used in virtualization discussions, let’s clear a few misconceptions:

A) Is a core or thread limited to run one Virtal machine? 

If you do some research, you’ll find out most people will claim that each VM needs one FREE core to be able to run thus you cannot use that same core to run another VM.

But say for penn testing purposes, most VMs just sit there in iddle with a few scripts running in the background and thus they will run fast even if a core is not reserved for a single VM. 

Q: Will assigning to many cores to a VM slow down performance?

Most likely it will but it depends on the software and what version of the software you’re talking about. Recent updates and version will handle it better.

Why did it happen? or why does it happen?

The more CPUs you assign to a guest (or VM), the more overhead there will be, more overheads means more time reading and processing data thus the longer it takes to process resources for a VM. You can avoid this problem by making sure you don’t add more cores to a guest than you think you will need, more cores won’t necessarily make it run ‘faster’. Your VM software will automatically assign the number of cores more efficiently without compromising processing speed.

Q: is it wise to buy the laptop with the best and latest hardware if I want to run many many VMs?

As you’ll see soon (in the last section) this isn’t true, if you do this you might be wasting too many resources on the GPU rather than RAM for example.

See, as i’ve said several times throughout this post, it’ll be very rare for you to be bottlenecked by CPU power as most CPUs (below 1000 dollars) on laptops will have 8 cores (the maximum amount as of 2023) and thus it’ll be down to how much RAM that laptop supports that will dictate how many virtual machines you can run simultaneously. After you max out on RAM & # Cores, you don’t want to maximize GPU power because that’s pretty much USELESS to run VMs and which is unfortunately what’s being ‘maxed out’ on laptops after CPU by manufacturers. You want to maximize clock speed and then storage instead.

Here’s the full hierarchy:

CPU Cores > RAM > clock speed > Storage in that order.

Q: Is old hardware better for Virtualization? 

You may have heard this somewhere and the reason is some people back then used to say that slightly older hardware will more than likely have the right set of drivers to run Linux with zero issues.

But today, in 2023, Linux distros has been updated left and right and constantly doing so thus most linux distros will now have the right set of drivers for most commodity machines. Linux is still Open Source and new revisions, updates are coming out every week.

So don’t be afraid of buying the latest 12th generation Intel Core CPU or the 6th generation Ryzen Chips, most distros will fully support laptops and computers with this hardware by mid-2023. 

Q: Is Intel hardware better for Virtualization?

It  was in the past but now both AMD & Intel have the same efficienty when running Virtual machines as similar technologies have been implemented in both brands to run VMs better. 

You should only pick Intel however if you’re on a budget as they may have a significant advantage when running VMs (due to the Vt-T technology being better implemented on older chips than the AMD counterparts at the time). 

3. Virtualization User Guide

This section will briefly talk about the activities and hardware you’ll need depending on the type of user you are. You can call it a complete wrap up of this post, I will talk about more hardware details in the last section but this may be all you need to read if you are not too adept with computer hardware. 

Students

If you’re in college or in an institution  taking classes say for the IT field  then you don’t need any special machine for the kind of VM work you’ll go through. Although you will run a few VMs for some classes, there’s no way you’ll be running dozens of VMs even if you take classes on Cybersecurity. Thus a commodity machine like a 350 dollar laptop made within the past few years (ideally with an 11th or 12th gen CPU) that has 8GB RAM will be all you need.

Software testing

If you’re a programmar and you’ve suddenly been told you need to work in the software testing department of your company then you ALSO don’t need to worry much about hardware to test software on different Operating Systems plataforms through Virtual Machines. 8GB RAM + A modern CPU will let you test software with zero lag (unless we’re talking about game development or graphically intensive software).

You don’t even need to worry about hardware compatibility issues as most VM software can run OSX, Linux, Chrome OS and Windows on most laptops. 

 IT professionals

I have a whole separate post on this topic here best laptop for IT Professional because it isn’t as simple as recommending this or that laptop. It really depends on what you’re working within the IT business.

For for those IT people that want to run several VMs, for like, a lab that integrates Cisco Firewalls,routers, switches with ESXi hosts you probably want to read the last section (hardware for virtualization) as you will need as much hardware goodness as you can get out of a laptop but to make it short and sweet most will be fine with 32GB RAM and an 6-8 core CPU.

Pen-Testing & Ethical Hacking

Most pen testers will at some point have to simulate large nested networks and they usually hold several dozens of VMs (in order to simulate a real world network). In this scenario, you’ll need to learn as much as possible about hardware for virtualization, thus it is almost a requirement to read the last section. I would in this scenario advice to buy a desktop as they are all around upgradeable.

Your CPU does not have too many cores? Change it. Need more RAM? Add more. This isn’t the case for laptops !

Buying the latest CPU generation is a good idea…

Newer CPUs have the advantage of being more and more optimized to simultaneously run a large number of VMs with several different operating systems more effciently.

Take as an example, running several Windows 10 VMs and a Kali VM. The Windows VMs are basically internal services while the Kali VM will act as a responder for poison requests. This simulation will be slightly faster with newer generation CPU as the instructions may be slightly more and more complex for older generations and the older you go, the higher the chances these executions will be cut off completely.

Another reason to max out on hardware resources…

Is to simulate a very realistic network (as the one found on companies) which will consist of a large number of VMs in order to test vulnerability points in it.

This means:

• Making sure you get a laptop or motherboard (in the case of desktops) that supports RAM upgrades up to 32 or even 64.
• A very spacious SSD (PCIe NVMe) if desktop as laptops are usually equipped with PCIe NVMe anyways.
• The largest number of cores you can afford. Right now we have the 12th generation CPUs which work WONDERS for virtualization as the E-cores (additional cores) can also be used to run VMs (they’re equivalent to 6th gen Intel Core CPUs). Although Ryzen and Xeon will work as well depending on which one you can afford .
• Probably wise to make sure your WiFi Card has the latest protocol ( 802.11ax) which is marketed as WiFi 6 as this allows you back-ward compatibility running scripts with older protocols which you want to do as ‘sniffing’ in network traffic comes in all different forms.
  • It is best to pick brands (and if possible) models that are more compatible with Kali Linux (Dell XPS or Lenovo ThinkPads come to mind) for these kind of tests.
• A dedicated GPU, may come in handy to test scripts that make use of parallel processing to break in network security.

4. Hardware For Virtualization

CPU

Q: Which Processor is best for Virtualization ?

The CPU with more cores will always be the best one for virtualization. Even a much lower-clocked and older CPU will be better than a modern 2-core CPU even if you’re running only one virtual machine as it is likely you’ll also be multitasking while doing so . 

In an ideal world (unlimited budget) you would want to assign one core to each logical machine. All you can do for now (at least on laptops) is assign one thread to each VM and if running more than 15 VMs and you have maxed out # cores you can afford, then the next step would be (after maxing out RAM) to add more clock speed. 

Intel vs AMD for virtualization: Intel VT, Hyper V, AMD V

These are the two names for the technology on each CPU brand that makes virtualization more efficient. They both work just as well.

Note that netbooks (10-11 inch laptops), laptops with Celeron, Pentium , Atom or any other ‘mobile-friendly’ CPU may not have these features (VT-x, AMD-V, Intel Hyper V) thus they must be avoided even if you want to run 1 virtual machine. 

If you’re building a desktop and you’re browsing around eBay for older (thus much cheaper) hardware be sure to double check (through intel’s website or just the google search bar) they support:

• Intel Vt, Hyper V, AMD V: Names for the Virtualization technology for both Intel and AMD
• x86 or x64 plataforms: This means the CPU can run 86 and 64 bit systems (depending on the OS you want to virtualize)

Most modern CPUs will have all of that, it’s only a concern for much much older CPUs. Note that these features may have been disabled during the manufacturing process and you may have to manually go into the “BIOS/UEFI” settings to enable these.

Hyperthreading

Everybody knows what HyperThreading is, if you don’t please check my posts on the side bar for the basics.

It’s basically the programming paradigm responsible in splitting a “CORE” into two “cores”, the resultant cores are obviously “virtual cores” the same way a hypervisor fools the operating system there is a new computer within a computer, hyperthreading fools the system to think there are “TWO cores” instead of one.

Overall this multiplies the number of cores by two. Thus if you have a dual core CPU, you’ll have 4 virtual cores (also known as threads). You can use 1 thread for the hypervisor (host) and the other 3 to run 3VMs.

Now, you don’t have to check whether the CPU you’re buying or your laptop supports hyperthreading. All CPUs released after 2010 will 100% have hyperthreading (even the celeron and pentium CPUs). This is only an issue for older CPUs and I’ve mentioned here for information purposes.

12th generation – Alder Lake – E cores & P cores

The only exception to the hyperthreading feature being available in all modern CPUs are the 12th generation Intel CPUs. It doesn’t necessarily reduce the number of cores or the number of threads but I just want you to know that a 12th generation CPU  will give you the same # of cores as its 11th generation counterpart.

Now although there are two types of cores “E-cores” and “P-cores” and they make a total of 12, hyperthreading is only available on the “P-cores), thus despite having 12 cores, when hyperthreading is enabled, it will give you a total of 16 threads. The same amount of threads an 8-core CPU like the Ryzen 6700H gives you.

#Clock Speed = more VMs

Lastly, after you’ve found a bunch of laptops say all with 32 or 64GB and 16 threads, the next thing you can do to make sure MORE VMs can be run without lag or speed up the processing speed on each VM is to pick the CPU with the highest clock speed.

This may not be an obvious concept to grasp but if you look at the figure above, a virtual machines executions can be lined up in a queue where other virtual machines are also waiting.

A CPU (core or thread) can process each execution from every virtual machine if they’re all put in a queue as shown above, thus the faster the clock speed of said core , the smoother the executions will be and this translates to running more virtual machines with no waiting times (lag).

RAM

I remember running 4VMs on a gaming laptop that had the latest core i7 CPU and 16GB in 2017 (the usual set up of the most expensive gaming laptops) then using the task manager to see how much resources were being used and then found out the CPU was BARELY above 20% while RAM was choking near 80%, in other words, almost entirely being used. 

That doesn’t mean each VM will take 3GB that depends on how much RAM you assign to it and how much RAM your OS and software use. On average Windows 10 or 11 will take 3.5GB to run just as fast on a separate machine but for testing purposes you should be okay with 2GB and Linux Distros taken even less (500MB in some cases).

Anyways, the point here is that the more RAM you have (even for a low number of VMs) the better.

8GB vs 16GB vs 32GB

Virtually all laptops above 400 dollars will come with 8GB out of the box and as long as they’re ultra thin 2-1 notebooks, they can be upgradeable to 16GB.

Once you step into 600-700 and above territory, you will get laptops that can have RAM upgraded to 32GB. If it’s got a gaming GPU, it can certainly be upgraded to 32GB, if it doesn’t you must do the research as it may not be upgradeable to 32GB (just 16GB). 

Take for example, the lenovo thinkpads: Only the T & P series can be upgraded to 32GB RAM with some of the high-end T series being upgradeable to 64GB.

Lenovo Thinkpads with 32GB on-board: You’re going to find quite a lot of overpriced thinkpads that have 32GB. Just remember that doesn’t mean you can upgrade them to 64GB RAM, most of the time, it’s just a model that has been upgraded all the way to 32GB before being sold.

At the end of the day, there’s no way to know whether a laptop can be upgraded to 32 or 64GB unless it is specified by the manufacturer or unless a review specifically says so (has opened up the machine to check).

8GB RAM 

Most laptops have at least this much and this will be good for most people that only need to run up to 2 VMs at the same time (IT support, It administrators, programmers, software testing).

An ethical hacker or a someone getting started with pen-testing will also do fine with this much at least in the beginning as the basic starting set up only requires you to Kali Linux + Windows. 

16GB RAM

You’ll need at least 16GB RAM to run 4 or more VMs 4 VMs.

And as long as you assign 1GB (Linux VMs) you can +10 VMs. 

I would ideally choose this much for both IT purposes & Penn testing. Here’s the typical set up for a common IT lab: 

ESXi Host 1 – 4GB of RAM – 20GB of Hard drive
ESXi Host 2 – 4GB of RAM – 20GB of Hard drive
Windows Server 2012 R2 installation – 15 GB of hard drive
+ linked clone – Domain controller & iSCSI target – 1GB of RAM – 35 GB of hard drive
+ linked clone – vCenter Server 5.5 – 4GB of RAM – 35 GB of hard drive

Total ~16GB RAM.

32GB-64GB RAM

32GB RAM becomes bullet proof for IT purpoes. As for penn testing and ethical hacking, you may need to upgrade your laptop to 64GB in some cases. 

Storage

After you maxed out on RAM , # Cores and clock speed. You can speed up each Virtual Machine and maybe even squeeze a few more virtual machines through a high speed storage device.