I'm sure there's a whole section of Virtualization theory that deals with this, but I'm struggling for the right terminology, so thought i'd ask here.

 

I have 16 cores (32 thread) in my system. I'm running 3-4 VMs, multiple dockers and, of course, unRaid itself.

 

One of my VMs happens to have generally higher usage than others: the 2x cores / 4x threads are usually ~70% usage each when I check in dashboard. (This is due to a number of home automation workloads within the VM). I have no problem with that.

 

The query I have is, should I be, from time to time, switching the physical CPUs I'm using for this VM? Is there any chance that running 2 of 16 (or 4 of 32) cores on my CPU at a constantly higher load than the others will cause my CPU to fail sooner than it might otherwise?

 

I'm thinking of rotating types on a car to induce more even wear and extend life a little.

 

Is there a CPU equivalent?

 

/naivety  

 

Edited January 10, 20206 yr by meep
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There are certainly theoretical merit to it but I don't think it really has that big of an impact in real life.

Higher load on the same 2 out 16 cores over time may create a hot spot but then the temp should be even out by the CPU heat spreader.

2/16 is only 12.5% load max, it should not cause temp to sky rocket to the extent that it damages the CPU.