virtualbox.org

Hi,
We have a Win XP (SP3) VM running on an ancient Pentium 4 with Intel Core2 Duo with the VM having 1.5GB of RAM. The VM runs on its own 3.5inch internal SATA drive.

We run the same VM on a laptop with Intel i3 processor same RAM running on a 2.5inch SATA.

Logic says the laptop should be much much quicker than the tower machine but for disk intensive processes the tower is much quicker. We have tried using an external (USB2) drive both sizes and still the old tower outperforms the laptop.

Same results with 4.0.4 and 3.2.12. Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance

I've found the whole i-series to run as slow as cr*p, after testing I've send them all back, give me a quad or xeon anyday.

To me, logic does not suggest that a laptop will run disk-intensive tasks faster then a tower, regardless of CPU. For a standard disk drive, the prime consideration is speed. For a laptop drive, weight and power consumption get a higher rating than in a desktop. The drive speed and transfer rate will have more effect than the CPU power.

Is the tower a Pentium 4 or a Core2 Duo?

Sorry, silly me. The tower is a Core2 Duo (upgraded the CPU).

However, using DiskBench the laptop has better disk transfer times which is why I am a little surprised.