Poor performance on Mac Mini host

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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kim
Posts: 4
Joined: 30. May 2011, 10:19
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win7 64

Poor performance on Mac Mini host

Post by kim »

I have a MacBook Pro laptop which is about 4 years old. A few months ago I purchased a Mac Mini. Although the Mac Mini is new, the spec is almost the same as my laptop. The only real difference is that the laptop has a 256G SSD HD, while the Mac Mini has 1TB mechanical HD.

Both machines are used for software development, and they have pretty much an identical software setup. Both have MacOS Mojave, and I use Virtual Box (managed by Vagrant).

The problem is that the laptop runs WAY faster than my Mini. As far as I can tell, the problem occurs when RAM is full, and the machine is forced to use swap space on the disk. I realise that swapping to a mechanical HD is going to be slower than an SSD, but we are talking WAY slower.

It's not just the virtual machines that slow down, but the host as well. For example, it can take more than 30 seconds to launch Excel. Under the same load, my laptop takes about 2 seconds.

Has anyone else used a Mac Mini with virtual box? What was your experience?

I am trying to work out if my machine (or HDD) is a dud, or if there are systemic problems with Mac Mini and virtual box generally.
socratis
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Re: Poor performance on Mac Mini host

Post by socratis »

Try to compare the two systems when the host is not under stress, i.e. no swapping at all, plenty of free RAM on the host. There can be no comparison between an SSD and a traditional mechanical HD swapping, none at all!
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