How to make direct slot swapping usable with the ShuOne 8 port KM Synchronizer

[nodoze]

Do I actually need 5 machines to use this method or can I use 1-2 and setup to VMs?

I'm not sure on the rules regarding virtual machines with WoW, you may want to read up on that before trying this out. With that said I have never tried to plug a USB switch (or sync) into a host PC twice so that your Hypervisor can provide distinct connections to the VM.

The only way I see this working out (and I'm no expert here) is if your host machine had a PCI add in card that provides additional USB ports. In terms of allocating physical hardware to one VM and not another, you might be able to plug 1 USB cable from the KM sync into the onboard USB and a second USB cable from the KM sync to the PCI USB card. In the configuration for the VM you'd make sure that one VM can only use the add in card and the other VM can only use the onboard USB. I have no idea if this would work or not and if WoW's ToS does not look kindly on playing in a virtual machine we may not want to even try.

My understanding is that Blizz has only spoken against Cloud Computing... Cloud Computing typically does involve virtualization with but it is with "VMs hosted in the Cloud" (not your home). Cloud Computing is not the same thing as using virtualization technology at your home...

After reading multiple great threads with many great contributions regarding hardware based options with tools/utilities (especially from Jak, bpkdasbsaum, & Ellay) I think a 5 physical PC 5box setup could be replicated possibly very inexpensively without buying 4+ more PCs (maybe only spending ~$170 to ~$400 total) by leveraging virtualization. The viability of this depends in part on what your current multi-box system is capable of and what your current monitor setup is...

In my head I can see this all working and put this down on "paper" quickly to get the word out so sorry in advance for any mistakes:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57967-So-hardware-multiboxing?p=433463&viewfull=1#post433463

Note that I haven't had time to really double check all of the above let alone try to set up a test lab but I have decades of experience with virtualization experience in large complex enterprise environments and believe I spec'ed it out in my head correctly...

I figured it best to share the info ASAP before folk consider buying 4+ PCs.