Windows 2003 guest: PAE, IDE vs SATA, network, SMP

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Solaris hosts.
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gbulfon
Posts: 31
Joined: 15. Jan 2009, 11:35

Windows 2003 guest: PAE, IDE vs SATA, network, SMP

Post by gbulfon »

Hello,
I did extensive tests today on a 16cores 2.9Ghz Sun X serie machine, using VirtualBox 3.1.4 running on Solaris 10 5/09 s10x_u7wos_08 X86.

1. PAE
To my experience, PAE always slows down the entire guest.
Because I usually don't need more than 2Gb on the Windows server (at the moment), this is not a big issue.
I can switch it off, and everything runs much smoother.

2. IDE vs SATA
I made two identical guests, but one with SATA and one with IDE.
I noticed that, in contrast with what is stated in the manual, IDE is faster, at least regarding the overall guest performance.
I did not try disk performance, because this was not my issue.
Anyway, boot is faster, and once logged in domain tools open faster.

3. network
First tests were with guest running the SATA mode. Tests were done using netio between the host and the guest.
After checking the new virtio interface, I could verify that network is much faster, expecially TX from the guest to the host.
In my tests, when using the normal intel 1Gb interface, TX to the host was slower than RX (TX: 100-200Mb, RX: 300-400Mb).
When using virtio TX rised up to RX (TX 300-400Mb, RX:300-400Mb).
Then I tried changing SATA to IDE, and did the same tests.
With normal intel I got faster rates then with SATA (TX: 300-400Mb, RX: 500-600Mb).
With virtio I got the best performances (TX: 500-600Mb, RX: 700-800Mb).
Why is IDE/SATA interefering with the network layer?

4. SMP
Last, I tried the SMP using the IDE setup.
Turned on ioapic, allocated 2 and up to 8 cores.
The boot sequence was very very very very very very slow!
Then, once logged in, everything seemed enough cool.
Task manager was showing my 8 cores, and the same domain tools were responding faster, and stealing a very little cpu time.
The slow boot sequence though, is worrying me that SMP may interfere in something else during workload.

Here is the machine configuration (the one with IDE+virtio+SMP):

Code: Select all

Sun VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.1.4
(C) 2005-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Name:            gabry2
Guest OS:        Windows 2003
UUID:            50685ca6-44c4-45d9-bff3-02c4a74e9434
Config file:     /.VirtualBox/Machines/gabry2/gabry2.xml
Hardware UUID:   50685ca6-44c4-45d9-bff3-02c4a74e9434
Memory size:     1024MB
VRAM size:       64MB
Number of CPUs:  8
Synthetic Cpu:   off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): HardDisk
Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
PAE:             off
Time offset:     0 ms
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging:   on
VT-x VPID:       on
State:           powered off (since 2010-02-25T17:46:02.967000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: <NULL>
Teleporter Password: <NULL>
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
IDE Controller (0, 0): /iserver/xvm/Gabry2.vdi (UUID: 0833e669-bad4-40db-948e-900619433f9b)
IDE Controller (0, 1): /opt/VirtualBox/additions/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso (UUID: 06c8cb7c-f9c9-45bb-8c14-a071dafd1b87)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027E12FD4, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'igb0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: virtio, Reported speed: 0 Mbps
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
UART 1:          disabled
UART 2:          disabled
Audio:           disabled
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
VRDP:            enabled (Address 0.0.0.0, Ports 33169, MultiConn: off, ReuseSingleConn: off, Authentication type: null)
USB:             disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Shared folders:  <none>

Guest:

Statistics update:                   disabled
What is your considerations?
Why does PAE slows down everything?
Should I use IDE instead of SATA? And if SATA...should I leave boot disk on SATA0-3 (IDE emulations) and other sata disks on real SATA4-xx?
Should I use SMP on Windows 2003 server?
Maybe using a latest OpenSolaris I would get different results?

Thanx a lot for all your great work ;)
Gabriele.
virtit
Posts: 3
Joined: 16. Feb 2009, 15:11

Re: Windows 2003 guest: PAE, IDE vs SATA, network, SMP

Post by virtit »

Hi.

2. IDE vs SATA
I have Windows XP guest on OpenSolaris x86 b134 host. Dell 610 one CPU 2GHz, RAM 2G.
VirtualBox 3.1.8r61349
Guest disk (vmdk) consists of two partition from internal HDD. Guest sees it as one physical disk divided into C: and D:
Guest has two controllers: SATA IntelAhci (driver: Intel ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller version 8.9.0.1023)
and IDE PIIX4 (driver: Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller version 5.1.2600.5512)

I compared copying speed between C: and D: with vmdk disk attached to IDE and to SATA and my results:
1GBytes files: IDE is 2.1 - 2.7 times faster than SATA. With max speed up to 13000 KBytes/sec, whereas SATA up to 6000KBytes/sec
1MBytes and smaller scattered files: IDE Is 1.1 - 1.5 times faster than SATA
magustin
Posts: 5
Joined: 7. Aug 2009, 20:20
Primary OS: Solaris
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windows XP SP2

Re: Windows 2003 guest: PAE, IDE vs SATA, network, SMP

Post by magustin »

I was wondering where you got the virtio interface drivers?
gbulfon
Posts: 31
Joined: 15. Jan 2009, 11:35

Re: Windows 2003 guest: PAE, IDE vs SATA, network, SMP

Post by gbulfon »

magustin wrote:I was wondering where you got the virtio interface drivers?
there is a virtio driver for Windows taken from RedHat virtio-win driver.
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