virtualbox.org

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?

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

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.

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.