ubuntu - Vmware Workstation uses all my RAM

When I run a virtual machine in VMware workstation, after a few minutes of use, it uses all my RAM (16GB). My system performance slows down to a crawl. The problem happens with Linux guest too but its worse with Windows guest. In VMware Workstation Preferences I have Reserved Memory set to 2GB, and specified to fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM but that didn't help despite docs recommendation.

Does anyone know how to stop VMware Workstation from using up all my RAM when I run a guest Virtual Machine?

I don't have the problem with VirtualBox and I have tried to re-install VMware Workstation and the problem persist. I'd stop using it but there are some projects that require me to use VMware.

Here are further details:

When I run free -m in the terminal when VMware Workstation is open but no guest running (before firing up the VM):

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         15945       3370      12575        198         23        696
-/+ buffers/cache:       2650      13295
Swap:        19072         74      18998

After starting a Windows 10 Guest and running for a few min, if I run free -m in my host I get:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         15945      15694        251       2182         66      12158
-/+ buffers/cache:       3468      12477
Swap:        19072         74      18998

When I shutdown the Windows 10 guest and run free -m again:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         15945      13499       2446        197         67      10209
-/+ buffers/cache:       3223      12722
Swap:        19072         74      18998

To get my RAM back I have to run:
sync && echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches and then I run free -m I get:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         15945       3312      12633        198          2        642
-/+ buffers/cache:       2667      13278
Swap:        19072         74      18998

System Host and Guest Specs

//////////////////////////////////////
System Host:
Ubuntu 14.04LTS
VMware Workstation 12 Pro Version: 12.1.1 build-3770994
///////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////
VM Guest:
Windows10
RAM: 1984MB
Processors: 1
DisplayRAM: 1GB
///////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////
Motherboard:
ASUS AMD M5 A97 R2.0
///////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////
CPU:
AM3+ AMD FX 8320 8-Core
3.5GHz 16MB Total Cache, (5GHz Max)
///////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////
Graphics Card:
ZOTAC Nvidia Geforce GT 730
4GB DDR3 64-bit HDCP
DUAL-Link DVI, HDMI, VGA
///////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////
RAM: 16GB
Kingston Hyperx
2x8GB Memory Sticks
1866 DDR3 240-pin
///////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////
POWER SUPPLY:
EVGA 1000w PS
1000GQ
80+ Gold series
///////////////////////////////////////

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Update, 19th September 16

(Note that this is additional information by @granjow, which hopefully represents the OP’s experience.)

To add some clarifications, the problem is not that the number in the “free memory” column is small and we are just unhappy about this number because large numbers are nicer. The problem is that system performance is actually terrible.

The problem manifests itself as follows: After starting the VM and some programs, the amount of free memory drops, which is to be expected. The amount of memory used by VMware rises far over the configured limit (i.e. 10 GB instead of 4 GB, with only 8 GB of physical RAM in total). At some point, both guest and host start freezing for > 10 s on several occasions: for example navigating in files in WebStorm (guest), opening a new browser tab or terminal tab or just pressing Alt-Tab (host).

When observing CPU load on those occasions, the guest CPU usage goes to 100 % for as long as the system freezes, but no program is showing up as busy in the task manager. Basically, I can observe the typical symptoms of a system running out of RAM and heavily using the disk as cache. When observing the VMware log, there is often a line about ballooning kicking in, which is said to be the very intelligent mechanism of VMware which manages and releases memory freed by the guest.

We are not talking about bad specs of the host machine, because

• exactly the same VM has been running on exactly the same hardware on Windows 10 smoothly without ever experiencing performance issues


• the same VM, imported in VirtualBox on Ubuntu, runs equally well as with VMware on Windows 10, with htop/glances showing constant memory usage of around 4.6 GB, and with no freezes at all.