PP Mguire, you've been a great help - thanks very much. I'll source all my components over the next week and post them up to check with you if that's ok?
One last thing - you mention Win 7 Pro for the OS, is Win 7 Ultimate not necessary then? What would be the optimum size for the SSD containg the host OS? You mentioned 64GB. My current host Win7 instal seems to be about 25GB and my VM's with Win7 installed range between 20GB to 40GB. To be on the safe side should I get an SSD of, say 100GB or will 64GB be enough? I don't plan to put anything else on this host OS apart from the OS, but am worried that for some strange reason it may start getting bigger and bigger and get close to the 64GB and start to slow down.
One last thing - you mention Win 7 Pro for the OS, is Win 7 Ultimate not necessary then? What would be the optimum size for the SSD containg the host OS? You mentioned 64GB. My current host Win7 instal seems to be about 25GB and my VM's with Win7 installed range between 20GB to 40GB. To be on the safe side should I get an SSD of, say 100GB or will 64GB be enough? I don't plan to put anything else on this host OS apart from the OS, but am worried that for some strange reason it may start getting bigger and bigger and get close to the 64GB and start to slow down.