Disk speed

[Blox]

Host and guest OS both are Win x64 pro. Latest VirualBox and GuestAdditions installed. VirtualBox is installed on a m.2 SSD
Obviously a virtual machine is always a little slower that running things outside a virtual machine. But when I say slower, I'm not talking about a vague syntetic benchmark.

Inside VirtualBox is only one program installed. QGIS.
That program accesses 2TB of data stored on a regular HDD (Toshiba N300)
It's accessed using a shared folder.
Is a shared folder a virtual LAN connection?
I also have QGIS installed directly on my PC to compare speed (the VirtualBox is to make things more portable)
There's a real speed diffrence on certain actions. It involves fetching data from that shared folder and some calculations I guess.
On my PC it's instantly. In the VirtualBox 30 seconds.

Is a shared folder for technical reasons always slower?
Ways so speed things up.
Would a fast external USB disk improve things?

[mpack]

It's accessed using a shared folder.

If that means a Guest Additions Shared Folder then don't. GA shared folders are made to get files in and out of the VM, they are not optimized for dynamic performance.

Use a true network share instead.

[Blox]

If that means a Guest Additions Shared Folder then don't.

I'm not sure, so'll explain how I set it up.
Started the guest os.
Below the guest os window is a small toolbar on which I clicked the folder icon.
I then browsed to the disk on my host PC.
Selected auto mount, make permanent.

If that's a GA folder I'll try a true network share.
Is that done by mapping a disk in the Guest-OS like described here?


https://intranet.royalholloway.ac.uk/students/help-support/it-services/faq/network-drives/how-do-i-map-a-drive-on-windows-10.aspx

[scottgus1]

Below the guest os window is a small toolbar on which I clicked the folder icon.
I then browsed to the disk on my host PC.
Selected auto mount, make permanent.

That's a GA folder, yes.

A true shared folder from the host OS is set up in the host OS's normal shared folder settings, not in any Virtualbox settings. Then you'd use a Bridged or Host-Only Virtualbox network to get the host OS's shared folder to show up over the network in the VM OS.