New laptop needed for virtual machine/network security school program

[ebug122]

Howdy folks,

I'm going back to school in September and the program I'm taking (network security) is now considered a "mobile learning program". In other words, I need my own laptop to take the course.

Classes include penetration testing, password cracking, cryptography and digital forensics.

From what I understand, at the most, we will have 3 virtual machines (VMware workstation) running at the same time. One windows or linux host (XP/7/Ubuntu), one Windows Server (Win2k8), and one Linux Backtrack distro.

I'm looking for a laptop that will:

• Perform well with 3 VMs running
• Preferably with a resolution larger than 1366x768
• Minimum HDD space of 320GB
• I'd like to keep it below $1000 Canadian dollars, but am willing to consider more expensive ones if they offer a much greater benefit

Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Edit: Here's two that I've found so far:
Lenovo IdeaPad Y500

• i7-3630QM 2.4GHz CPU
• 8GB 1600MHz RAM
• 1TB 5400RPM HDD
• NVIDIA GeForce GT750M
• 15.6" 1920x1080 display

Total price (after e-coupon CAPDOORBUSTERS): $869.00

Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition

• i7-3632QM 2.2GHz CPU
• 8GB 1600MHz RAM
• 1TB 5400RPM HDD
• Radeon HD 7730M 2GB
• 15.6" 1920x1080 display

Total price (after $100 instant rebate): $799.00

 

[cullam3n]

I wish I remember the laptops we used in my SANS class. Pretty thick Dells with 1080 screens and i7s.

I can recommend that your i5/i7 processors end in QM and not U, eg i7-3517U. The U designator means they are the ultra low TDP versions that have half the cores. Q = quad core, and M is for mobile. Some of the pricier and heavier laptops will have just the Q and not M. A little bit more power at the sacrifice of battery life.

I had backtrack on one, CentOS on another, XP SP3 on another, and another Linux distro all running at the same time. Even if I had John the Ripper or something going on one, it didn't slow me down on the other. A lot of the VMs don't need that much memory to operate correctly, especially in a classroom environment.

 

[ebug122]

Thanks for the information. I know what you mean about memory requirements. I had Server 2k3, XP and Backtrack VMs running during my last college course. This was on a Pentium dual core 2.0GHz Toshiba laptop with 4GB of RAM. It ran, albeit rather poorly.

I'll have a look at Dell's and see what options I come up with.

 

[SMOKEU]

I suggest going for a SSD as running VMs off a laptop HDD is going to be painfully slow. If that's not an option, then at the very least buy an external USB3 HDD so you're not running all the OSs off the same drive. You could run half the VMs off each drive in that case.

With the course I'm at, we have Sandybridge Xeons with 32GB of RAM and 2 7200RPM drives in RAID 0, and that is horribly slow at times with even 3 VMs so I'd hate to think what it would be like running it all off one laptop drive.

It's also good that you're looking at 1080p screens since 1366X768 is completely unacceptable in a new laptop these days.

 

[SteveLord]

Trade the video card for an SSD if possible. You're already taking a hit running VMs on laptop hardware.

 

[cullam3n]

Personally I ran 3+ VMs on normal laptop hard drives (don't know if they were 5400 or 7200rpm), and slowness was not an issue.

RAM is always good, but really with 8GB of RAM you will be fine. XP SP3 will run all damn day at 512-768MB. CentOS, BT5, etc you can allocate ~1.5GB or even less. You might also use other versions of Linux that are stripped down and only have special tools on them, and you can set those to 512-1024MB.

Really the most important thing is having a real i7 with cores and HT, and the resolution. It's a lot easier to manage everything at 1920x1080 than 1366x768. You will be fine just allocating one core/thread to each VM. I guess you could have 2 dedicated for BT5 for cracking passwords, but my experience in these classes is that the passwords used aren't designed to be brute forced. The password is usually retrieved through other means such as hints or clues to put in your wordlist.

These classes are normally fast-paced learning a lot of material, so if you are using john for more than 10 minutes you did something wrong.

 

[ebug122]

Found another competitor: MSI GE60

• i7-3632QM 2.2GHz CPU
• 8GB RAM
• 750GB SATA 7200 rpm
• NVIDIA GeForce GT750M
• 15.6" 1920x1080 display

Highly tempted because of the 7200RPM hard drive. I would consider an SSD, but at this point I'm not sure how much space I will need. USB3 may be an option though.

 

[SteveLord]

A 5400rpm hard drive will run VMs like garbage. Don't settle for anything less than 7200.