Fileserver / VM Server: Share file system with vm?

[phendryx]

I have a machine that I am using as a local file server as well as VM server. The file server is CentOS 6.2, the VM guest is also CentOS 6.2. I know I can do an NFS share, cifs share, etc, but those all end up limited to 1gbit since those all use standard networking. I am wondering if there is a way to somehow share the file server with the guest and reach near disk speed rather than being capped at 1gbit?

[mpack]

Virtual networking is not limited by real world network speeds, if that is what you mean.

[phendryx]

Well, I'm only getting about 50MB/s thru put on a ftp transfer which is about as fast I normally get between physical hosts via 1gbit connection. This is from the host to the vm, so there's no physical networking involved. My vm net adapter is a host only adapter, not sure if that makes a difference or not.

[mpack]

I would call 50MB/s pretty good, considering that my PCs hard disks only gets about 50MB/s native throughput on most mixed tasks. Mind you the hdd I'm thinking of is one of those WD "green" ones with a slightly lower spindle speed.

1Gbps theoretical would be (quick calc) 125MB/s, way faster than your typical desktop hard disk: probably meaning that the performance you've seen is bounded by the hard disk and CPU, not the network. That's if the network actually achieves its theoretical max of course, and I would doubt that too.