Virtual machines

[DimPrawn]

Hi

I have a VM running XP as a dev environment running on a 64bit Ubuntu machine. It is slow even though the architecture is 64 bit and with plenty of ram for host and guest (6GB). Would I benefit from moving the VM to an independant internal disk so the host OS and guest OS weren't fighting for IO access to the same disk?

TIA

SY01

PS Any other VM performance tips gratefully received

Google Linux slow VMware host brings up lots of hits.

I guess that's what you get with a toy OS written by a few teenagers in a bedsit.

But hey, your times cheap so keeeeep fiddling.

[VectraMan]

Would I benefit from moving the VM to an independant internal disk so the host OS and guest OS weren't fighting for IO access to the same disk?

Is this host OS doing something disk intensive at the same time? I don't understand why they'd be "fighting" in normal use. But of course if you have two disk intensive things running at the same time, you'd probably benefit from having two disks - but that's nothing to do with VMs.

I have an XP dev VM running under VirtualBox (on a Windows 7 host now, but I've run the same VM on an Ubuntu host). The GUI can be a little clunky, but general processing and disk access (i.e. compiling) doesn't seem any different than running natively.

[d000hg]

I recently installed XP Mode on Windows 7 and it seems very fast. I've also seen VMWare and Bootcamp run fast even on slow PCs, so something seems fishy. Can you elaborate on "it is slow"? What are you running through it and what specifically is slow - how long does booting XP take, etc?

[doodab]

Hi,

About 50/50 although the VM is not running anywhere capacity (and paging is turned off). I tried increasing the process priority for VMWare in Ubuntu which did improve things but I am really not understanding what I am doing, I can only make educated guesses (such as using an independant disk) and did not want to commit cash unless it is backed with someone ratifying the approach.

Thanks

SY01

I personally use the following for best performance:

Make sure that vmware has enough memory allocated in the host settings & that it's set to "fit all memory in reserved host RAM"

Make the virtual disk is set to use independent / persistent unless you *need* to use snapshots (this is set per virtual disk) and that space is preallocated. Also, use the vmware recommended SCSI adapter & driver if possible (needs to be done at OS install time really)

In the advanced VM settings make sure debugging is disabled, and disable memory page trimming

And of course make sure you have up to date vmware tools installed in the guest. There are certainly benefits to the various VT-? hardware enhancements as well, and realistically if you are trying to run e.g. a sizeable database and app server with a realistic load from a single disk you will get the performance you'd expect.

[Jaws]

PS Any other VM performance tips gratefully received

I run my VMs on a separate machine, using VMWare ESXi as the operating system (running off a USB stick). It runs very fast (8gb machine). Almost all of the machine's RAM is available for the VMs, maybe a set up like that would be a cheaper option.

For VMWare (you may have done this already) there is the "VMWare Tools" software which can be loaded onto your guest machine to improve the performance.

[suityou01]

Hi Sy

What is the split of RAM between the virtual and the physical? I tend to give the virtual as much RAM as I can.

Hi,

About 50/50 although the VM is not running anywhere capacity (and paging is turned off). I tried increasing the process priority for VMWare in Ubuntu which did improve things but I am really not understanding what I am doing, I can only make educated guesses (such as using an independant disk) and did not want to commit cash unless it is backed with someone ratifying the approach.

Thanks

SY01

[Netraider]

Hi Sy

What is the split of RAM between the virtual and the physical? I tend to give the virtual as much RAM as I can.

[suityou01]

Hi

I have a VM running XP as a dev environment running on a 64bit Ubuntu machine. It is slow even though the architecture is 64 bit and with plenty of ram for host and guest (6GB). Would I benefit from moving the VM to an independant internal disk so the host OS and guest OS weren't fighting for IO access to the same disk?

TIA

SY01

PS Any other VM performance tips gratefully received