Slow Disk Performance on Solaris 10 U6

[oh_noes]

Solaris 10 U6
Virtualbox 3.1.2

Hardware:
Intel Q6600
Intel Server Board
8GB DDR2-667 ECC
2x 320GB 7200rpm disks

I ran bonnie++ on the rpool OS mirror (I created ZFS Filesystem for /export/home/vbox) and I get 130MB+ Writes and Reads. The underlying hardware is really fast.

However, inside the single Windows 7 64bit guest has REALLY slow IO.

VT-x is enabled
2 CPU
2048 Memory
3.1.2 Guest Additions is installed


When I copy a file over the network I get 1MB/s
When I extract a zip file inside it I get 2MB
Everything inside it feels slow, even opening Explorer etc.

Code: Select all

$ VBoxManage showvminfo Win7
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.1.2
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Name:            Win7
Guest OS:        Windows 7 (64 bit)
UUID:            4e152fa6-c0d6-43d9-be9e-71d8cf96fe20
Config file:     /export/home/vbox/.VirtualBox/Machines/Win7/Win7.xml
Hardware UUID:   4e152fa6-c0d6-43d9-be9e-71d8cf96fe20
Memory size:     2048MB
VRAM size:       128MB
Number of CPUs:  2
Synthetic Cpu:   off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
PAE:             on
Time offset:     0 ms
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging:   on
VT-x VPID:       on
State:           running (since 2010-01-19T13:44:35.375000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
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
Storage Controller Name (1):            SCSI Controller
Storage Controller Type (1):            LsiLogic
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  16
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      16
Storage Controller Name (2):            Floppy Controller
Storage Controller Type (2):            I82078
Storage Controller Instance Number (2): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (2):  1
Storage Controller Port Count (2):      1
IDE Controller (1, 0): Empty
SCSI Controller (0, 0): /export/home/vbox/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/Win7-OS.vdi (UUID: b9470c5c-e2f5-46a0-a4b5-63c66954a215)
SCSI Controller (1, 0): /export/home/vbox/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/Win7-Data.vdi (UUID: 36894352-feb0-4ca4-8062-9794610d5d42)
Floppy Controller (0, 0): Empty
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027D0725D, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'e1000g0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, 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:           enabled (Driver: SolAudio, Controller: AC97)
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
Video mode:      1920x1200x32
VRDP:            enabled (Address 0.0.0.0, Ports 3389, MultiConn: off, ReuseSingleConn: off, Authentication type: null)
VRDP port:       3389
USB:             enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Available remote USB devices:

<none>

Currently Attached USB Devices:

<none>

Shared folders:  <none>

VRDP Connection:    not active
Clients so far:     0

Guest:

Statistics update:                   disabled

What can I do to debug this? What should I look into?

Thanks

[oh_noes]

Anyone???

I also deployed a Linux VM, same configuration (SCSI) and it too is capped at roughly 10-13MB/s.

# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 3752 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1876.97 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 66 MB in 4.83 seconds = 13.65 MB/sec

[oh_noes]

I also tried redeploying Windows 7 64bit, this time using SATA disks. No difference.

The Guest VM is still basically capped at 10MB:

Time offset:     0 ms
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging:   on
VT-x VPID:       on
State:           powered off (since 2010-03-04T23:58:08.000000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: 
Teleporter Password: 
Storage Controller Name (0):            SATA Controller
Storage Controller Type (0):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      30
SATA Controller (0, 0): /export/home/vbox/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/Win7-OS.vdi (UUID: b9470c5c-e2f5-46a0-a4b5-63c66954a215)

[avdspm]

I don't think this is a solaris issue. I'm running windows 7 64 bit guest os in ubuntu 10.04 (also 64 bit) and windows 7 performance is terrible. In fact, I couldn't even get more than 700 KB/sec transfers from the USB hard drive. When booting up, Windows 7 seems to be fast, but after opening Outlook and Powerpoint and using it for a few minutes, the entire OS crawls almost to a stop. I am forced to reboot every 2-3 hours just to get performance somewhat acceptable again, but only until it slows down again...

[oh_noes]

I ended up ditching thwe Windows 7 Guest and using Debian. it's a bit faster, but not that much.

My Host OS Disk/network is fast. Easily 100MB/s+ in both instances (confirmed when I use Samba against the Solaris Server).

Debian gets my 10/15MB/s+.
Widnows 7 got me the performance noted in this thread.