Is this reasonable

Hi folks,

i'm testing at the moment more different imaging programs. I read at some place in Internet that they tested an imaging program an a VMware VM. This haunts me for now about a week - testing something so close to hardware as an imaging program in a VM !!!

For me a VM was never "a real PC" it's more an emulation. I would never have come to the idea to test such a delicate thing in a VM. I mean a VM has no real hard disk, does it then makes sense to test a program that is all about harddrives and drivers in general to test in an emulated environment?

Thoughts on this?

 

There are certain tests that can only be done on a physical system (hopefully, the system it's going to be used on). However, testing basics, features, problem solving, etc. can often be done much more quickly in a VM. Inside the VM, the "hard drive" is just as real to the OS as on a physical system.

 

hello mudcrab,

so would you say its reasonable to create VM of physical machine, and the e. g. for a test to make an image of the "systempartition" inside the VM then restore it? I mean one problem of imaging a windows system partition while running is that everything is in use, the disk the drivers. Inside the vm there is no hardware its just passed through? Is this then really a meaningful result when "drivers" (like the standard graphic device inside vmware) and a "harddisk" - which is just a big file in a folder - is restored?

Trying to wrap my head around it but don't how much you can translate results from VM to physical..

 

It really depends on what you're testing. If you want to run the program through the wringer on a particular system then it's best to do the testing on that system. If you're testing general features, options, bugs, etc. you can usually use a VM.

I use both, but generally try it in a VM first (unless I know it won't work). Keep in mind that people who do testing need to run programs on many different configurations (Windows versions, different software installed, etc.). This is easy to manage with snapshots and a lot quicker (and cheaper) than constantly changing physical setups or having many physical systems up and running.

If you want to test that the restore will work properly on your physical system then you should test the restore on that physical system. Testing in a VM will only let you know if the restore works in the VM.

 

That's kinda how i see it...