Does changing NIC drivers require reinstall of Virtualbox?

[scottgus1]

I'm having network glitches on my host (Win7 professional 64bit host, SBS2003 and 3 XPsp3 guests, Virtualbox 4.0.16) Whenever (and only when) I copy a really large file (like my backed-up .vdi's, dozens of GB in size) from the host to another computer on the network, I get ramping memory usage on the host and any network activity required by domain clients slows to a crawl. When I cancel the copy, the memory usage falls back to normal, and the network free's up again. I don't think this is a Virtualbox problem as such. I think I have to change the NIC drivers on the host.

My question is, if I do uninstall & reinstall host NIC drivers, should I uninstall & reinstall Virtualbox? I have to try this in the morning before anyone else wants to use the server.

[michaln]

My question is, if I do uninstall & reinstall host NIC drivers, should I uninstall & reinstall Virtualbox?

No.

[scottgus1]

That was quick. Thanks!

[BillG]

If you regularly do large file copies on the host it is probably worth giving it a dedicated NIC with its own switch port so that its network activities don't impact your vms (and vice versa).

[michaln]

Actually, I may have spoken too quickly. On a Windows host, *if* you are using bridged networking, you may need to reinstall the bridged filter driver to bind it to the new host NIC driver. For that, it may be easiest to just reinstall VirtualBox.

If you're using NAT (or host-only) networking then there's no need to reinstall anything.

BTW any reason why not upgrade to 4.1.8?

[scottgus1]

OK, I did a system restore point (just in case), copied the ".Virtualbox" and "Virtualbox VMs" folders from my main drive to another drive, then uninstalled Virtualbox. I changed the NIC drivers and tried a large-file copy, still the same problem. (I knew it wasn't Virtualbox causing the problem. Googling showed me I might need to try Xcopy.) Just wanted to say, Virtualbox reinstalled properly and found all my VM's just fine, and restarted them all (I just needed to switch each VM's network adapter to NAT then back to Bridged to connect throough the new drivers).

I haven't found any sluggishness in the network, except when I try the large-file copy. I just finished an Xcopy of the large file, and had 80% of the gigabit network used, but still no slwdowns. I think the sluggishness comes from the file-caching problem Google mentions. I'll look into the second NIC; there is a second one on the server, but I haven't started using it yet.

About upgrading to 4.1.8, I like to test new stuff in a non-production environment, so I don't get caught out on a limb with a show-stopping bug. For my boss's server, I want to swing from a "branch" of the Virtualbox "tree" that has been swung on a lot already and hopefully most of the "knots" have been found. I do the same for the software for our CNC cutting robot. The bleeding edge stuff bleeds a while and gets a chance to scab over before we try to make money with it.

[michaln]

OK, it makes sense sticking with an older known good version. Backing up the .VirtualBox and VirtualBox VMs directories is a good idea, although it isn't really necessary for reinstalling VirtualBox. The installer itself doesn't touch any of those files.