Running a Linux Virtual Box image from a USB 3.0 hard drive

[Andy2015]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone has experience running a Linux Virtual Box image where the .vdi is stored on an external USB 3.0 hard drive?

What is performance like? Is using a SSD a must?

Are there any optimizations that can be made like formatting a partition of the hard drive in ext4 and somehow using that for the VirtualBox image?

Thanks

[Perryg]

If the mother board supports USB3 and the Ext. Drive is USB3 the speed is just about as good as native. The only thing you must watch out for is improperly shutting down the external drive. This will corrupt the data. high speed spin drives are good enough just stay away from green drives they are slower.

Note: it is always best to format the drives with what ever is native to the host. That is the fastest transfer rates because of no translation overhead.

[Andy2015]

Thanks - I'll give it a try.