virtualbox.org

vb 3.1.8
Gigabit LAN on Host, max fisable 125mbs on gb fd lan.
VM to Host, pcnet: typical 60mbs.
VM to VM, pcnet: typical 112mbs.

Additions?

-w 128KB (it defaults to 8kb)
Host machine to VM: 116 Mbits/sec
VM to Host machine: 89 Mbits/sec
VM to VM: 122 Mbits/sec

For better performance, please move to VirtIO network. (supported for most Linux and Windows guests on all hosts)

Technologov wrote:For better performance, please move to VirtIO network. (supported for most Linux and Windows guests on all hosts)

And what Windows guests support VirtIO natively? Inquiring minds want to know.

"VirtIO natively?"

Windows 2000 and up. Download drivers and go. Obviously they don't come pre-installed.
Really ancient Windows is supported. Same for Linux -- drivers exist for the ancient RHEL 3 guests. Backported by RedHat from 2.6 kernels.

See chapter "6.1. Virtual networking hardware". It has link to download drivers.

-Technologov

So I can download SIGNED drivers for Windows? Where do you find them?

Drivers are not signed. Signed drivers (WHQL'ed) do exist for RHEV customers only.

Ah there is the rub isn't it. I can get the drivers and I can sign them myself, no problem. But How do you instruct people here how to do it? My point is a lot of people read this and they try to do as we say and it just does not work because they hit a wall and well there you have it.

*all* VBox drivers are not signed.
Look at VBoxDrv / VBoxNetFlt /VBoxUSBMon... -- they all are not signed and not WHQL'ed.
I would like to see a WHQL'ed version of VBox in the future, but this would require effort.
Besides, on Win 2000/XP systems unsigned drivers work fine. Only Vista/7 have problems with it.
VBox uses some hack, that fakes WHQL signing to install it's drivers on those platforms. Maybe this hack could be extended to VirtIO drivers ?
VirtIO drivers were tested, and found stable, on both Windows and Linux guests.

There is a post about the bandwidth between VMs, and between VM and host.

Network throughput: Intel PRO/1000 MT Server is best
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34895

According to this post, on VB 3.2.8, "The "Intel PRO/1000" is clearly the fastest adapter" and "The "virtio-net" is very slow when doing file transfers from the host to the VM"

The newer version of VB slow down the performance of "virtio-net"?

There is a big difference between bandwidth and throughput, with these tests I'm not interrested in throughput.

Since you used iperf and Technologov talked about "better performance", I think you use the word "bandwidth" for "the actual bandwidth that is available to a network". Am I right?

In the post I mentioned, I think the author use the word "throughput" for "the actual bandwidth that is available to a network" too, beacuse he did some actual file transfer test, and talk about the file transfer rate, not the label on NIC.

"I installed an FTP server within the VM. I created a 100MB file on the host and transferred the file multiple times to and from the VM (using FTP put and get)."

And I did some test with iperf right now.
Host: win 7 Pro 32bit
Guest1: xp home sp3, virtIO, host-only
Guest2: xp pro sp3, Intel PRO/1000 MT Server, host-only

Guests are not running at the same time.

Host as server(8kb)
Guest1: 91.1 Mbits/sec
Guest2: 55.2 Mbits/sec

Host as server(128kb)
Guest1: 151 Mbits/sec
Guest2: 60.1 Mbits/sec

Guest as server(8kb)
Guest1: 122 Mbits/sec
Guest2: 230 Mbits/sec

Guest as server(128kb)
Guest1: 273 Mbits/sec
Guest2: 454 Mbits/sec