I am using an MacOS VM for a daily driver as I decided it was better to go with an unRAID MacOS VM for home use and a 12" MacBook for travelling with than buy an expensive MacBook Pro given already have a capable unRAID machine available to me.

 

One thing I was hoping to avoid though was excessive power usage by having the VM on all the time. Do you think it would use minimal extra resource if I left it on? It isn't as if I would be taking it when not using the VM. I could let it sleep of course but then it won't work through the normal press key or move the mouse type behaviour, I would need to go onto a different device , log into unRAID and start the VM up from the suspend state.

 

I have been toying with the idea of a simple iOS app or web app that could do this as a simple button click but it starts to get complex in writing a plugin or docker node app to use libvirt to manage VMs etc. I was after quick and easy! :)

 

so am I worrying about nothing?

 

so, here's a real life example:

 

2 oxs vm's and 1 opnsense firewall on a z400.

 

both vm's are on (not sleeping) and monitors shut off after 15 minutes.

 

The server is siting at 4-8% overall cpu usage, and that is mostly due to opnsense. The threads with the osx vm's on them are 1-3%

 

probably using less than a light bulb... not an led light bulb, but still, not that much.