ultimate99 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I run win7 pro x64 on a vm using virtual box. Everything is set to "best performance" in windows. However, i find it sluggish and slow, is there a way to make it run faster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnG86 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Put the VM on a SSD or at least a fast Hard Drive not shared with the host. Make sure you give it enough RAM for what you want it to run. T3X4S 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dot Matrix Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Put it on an SSD is your best bet. Even on a 7500 RPM drive, you're still looking at some latency. If you host it elsewhere, you're still also limited by your network speeds. Also, make sure you give it enough RAM to breath. Windows 7 x64 needs at least 4 GBs.*** *** If you're hosting it on a desktop you actively use, that means you need enough RAM to run the host OS, PLUS the 4 GBs for Windows 7 x64. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Norris Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I run win7 pro x64 on a vm using virtual box. Everything is set to "best performance" in windows. However, i find it sluggish and slow, is there a way to make it run faster? Giving it enough memory and CPU time/cores to run "comfortably" in? That is, only giving it one core and 512MB isn't going to wow the person using it. Got the CPU's hardware virtualization support enabled? If possible, keep the VM on a different drive than the OS to reduce the "drag" a bit, SSD's obviously a bonus. Can't comment on VBox, but 7 runs just fine with VMWare, feels more or less about as fast as a regular install. My one test VM only has 2GB and I only give it 2 cores to work with, runs plenty fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted April 27, 2014 Member Share Posted April 27, 2014 I've seen the performance differences with I/O for virtual machines on an SSD. It can be night and day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_dandy_ Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I'm assuming this is on the Lenovo T440p in your signature. Give 7 at least 4GB of RAM for decent performance (it *works* with 2GB, but could definitely explain why it feels sluggish). Hopefully you're not running anything too RAM-hungry on the host; giving half of it to a VM when you only have 8GB is going to be tight. I have 32GB on my host, and typically run 8-10 VMs 24/7, each with anywhere between 2 and 8GB, and they're all pretty snappy and responsive. As others have said, put the VM on a different physical drive. If this is the T440p in your sig, and it's running Windows 8.1 Pro, you have HyperV available to you. Why are you using VirtualBox? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimate99 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 I'm assuming this is on the Lenovo T440p in your signature. Give 7 at least 4GB of RAM for decent performance (it *works* with 2GB, but could definitely explain why it feels sluggish). Hopefully you're not running anything too RAM-hungry on the host; giving half of it to a VM when you only have 8GB is going to be tight. I have 32GB on my host, and typically run 8-10 VMs 24/7, each with anywhere between 2 and 8GB, and they're all pretty snappy and responsive. As others have said, put the VM on a different physical drive. If this is the T440p in your sig, and it's running Windows 8.1 Pro, you have HyperV available to you. Why are you using VirtualBox? Yes, on my t440p. I'll look into moving it into another drive and increasing the ram. I don't know what HyperV is or how to use it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I don't know what HyperV is or how to use it. :) Best not to worry about it then. Virtualisation is always going to take a "small hit", so keep that in mind as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam14160 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 A good deal of people out there for some reason say that more than four to eight gigs of ram is all you need, albeit when running VM's it is important to have as much ram as possible. I run a Lonovo 27 inch all in one with an i7 4770 processer and32 gigs of ram, along with two 480 gig SSDs (no spinner either internally or externally. I run four VMs (win 7, OS X, win 8.1.1 sandbox, and Linux Open Suse without any problems. Each VM is given 8 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of SSD storage space. Oh, and 3 other monitors running on USB 3 Video Plugable devices. If your serious load your system up, and then enjoy th results of running VMs that will perform almost as fast as the installed sytem. . .Good luck, and enjoy. . . :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LogicalApex MVC Posted April 28, 2014 MVC Share Posted April 28, 2014 It isn't as straightforward as just add an SSD or not. It depends on why your VM is running slow... I haven't used Virtual Box, but I would start by ensuring you have the hypervisor optimization pack installed... If you have that installed then look at the VM and see what is stalling it out. Also look at host hardware utilization. if your VM and/or host isn't doing heavy utilization on I/O an SSD likely won't fix the problem. If you gave the VM 2 cores on a dual core machine you will experience delays due to the hypervisor waiting for both cores to be free before it can execute it's tasks. What is the configuration of the VM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 ultimate99 thats one sexy laptop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aergan Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Use remote desktop to access it, that should net a considerable performance increase. You can also move the storage to a dedicated HDD (ideally SSD), that helps a lot. Or you can switch over to a proprietary, more performance orientated hyper visor when it comes to Windows 7 onwards (Hyper-V / VMWare player). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimate99 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 another question: I downloaded something via vm, how can I copy it to host, external hdd, or usb? I googeld and claims i can enable drag and drop, but it's not working. I enabled it in settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Norris Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 another question: I downloaded something via vm, how can I copy it to host, external hdd, or usb? I googeld and claims i can enable drag and drop, but it's not working. I enabled it in settings. Do you have it enabled in the guest additions too? Again I'm using VMWare but from what I recall it's more or less the same in VBox.. once it's working yea you can drag and drop it in and out of VM's window. Can also set up a shared folder in the guest additions and move it there, or depending on how your network is set up, just move it over the network as well like any other machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted April 28, 2014 MVC Share Posted April 28, 2014 So as stated a few times already - are you on a ssd? Also while virtualbox might be what you know, unless you can point to feature that is not there I would try hyper-v if your running 8.1 and its there out of the box anyway. As to your VM's performance - how much ram did you give it? Also not specific to virtualbox, but there are things recommended to change in a VM for better performance. Some info here - while based upon vmware view, seems that if good for the goose it should also be good for the gander. http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10157 Also are you running 32bit or 64bit guest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Thayios Subscriber² Posted April 28, 2014 Subscriber² Share Posted April 28, 2014 SSD is the biggest bang for your buck in this department. RAM has to be sufficient as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_dandy_ Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Yes, on my t440p. I'll look into moving it into another drive and increasing the ram. I don't know what HyperV is or how to use it. :) HyperV is Microsoft's virtualization software (previously known as Virtual Server / Virtual PC). Starting with Windows 8, it's built into the Pro/Enterprise versions of client OSes (on the server end, it used to only be available on 2008 and above). Personally, I recommend it over third-parties if only because it integrates nicely with the OS. Go to Programs and Features, Turn Windows features on or off, and you'll see HyperV listed there. Note that virtualization extensions have to be turned on in your BIOS (I forget exactly how it's called--I'm sure others will jump in). If it's not, then Windows will tell you when you try to put the checkmark and hit OK. Once it's installed, start typing Hyper on the Start screen, and you should see it. It's pretty easy to figure out--provided you define the networking first (something you only have to do once). You can then RDP into any VM from anywhere on your LAN like you would for any other physical machine. One thing you might benefit from with HyperV, since you're so low on total memory, is that it can dynamically reassign more RAM to a VM as needed--so for example, you might tell it to start with 2GB when you power it on, but if the guest OS needs more, let it grow up to a maximum amount (in your case, say, 6GB). You might be able to do this with VirtualBox already--I haven't used it in years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LogicalApex MVC Posted April 28, 2014 MVC Share Posted April 28, 2014 It is also important to point out that Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor. So running Hyper-V will place the OS you boot into directly inside of a VM. Some software doesn't play well with this. I recommend looking at Hyper-V as you get it free, but test it to be sure you don't run into any incompatibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REM2000 Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 Just a quick question you have installed the guest additions and they are the latest version / match the virtualbox version. You give the machine more video memory and enable 2D acceleration, i don't bother with 3D as i don't run any games or anything like that under a VM. I usually also switch Windows 7 to basic mode and don't enable Aero as that consumes a bit of memory and video memory. Generally the Win7 VM's i run under Virtual box even with 2GB RAM run quickly so you shouldn't have sluggish performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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