[Solved] Which is faster ? A new VDI (virtual disk image) or a SF (shared folder) ?

[WeirdSystem]

Hi ! I'd like to ask a question because I am absolutely new to Virtual Box !
I want to add a new hard disk drive to my system ( I already have C: and I want to add a D: drive) . Which solution is faster ? To create a VDI (virtual disk image) or a SF (shared folder) ?
In case it's needed , I am emulating WinXP on Win7 with Virtual Box 5.2.2 .

[socratis]

The two are completely irrelevant. One is a hard drive attached to your virtual computer, the other is a network share. As for the speed tests? It's relatively easy to try it out and let us know, because I haven't performed the benchmarks. I believe that a transfer to a VDI will be faster than a network transfer. But, again, I have no empirical data.

[WeirdSystem]

I don't even know to make a benchmark !

[mpack]

It doesn't really matter, the question itself is rather misguided. You need a VDI (or other hdd) to boot a VM from. Shared folders let you exchange data with the host. They serve different purposes and IMHO knowing their relative speeds doesn't help make any decisions about them.

In general on any PC I expect a local memory access (whether hdd, ssd or ram) to be faster and less prone to glitches than network shares. If you mean GA shared folders then those are only designed for simply data exchange, not for heavy use.

[WeirdSystem]

Thanks for the replies !
I don't want to boot from the new drive D: . I just want to install a program which I ran on WinXP . Alright , since there is no interesting difference between those two (and since that program either way does not require some fast hard disk) I will create a shared folder instead of a new VDI . In this way I will be able to access those files from the Host too (the files of that program are stored in the program's installation folder) .

[socratis]

I don't even know to make a benchmark !

Simple. You take a watch. You copy a large file to your 2nd VDI. You time the procedure. Then you copy the same large file to a network share. You time the procedure again. You compare times.

You may want to do this for a large number of small files as well to get a better understanding.

The real question is: why do you need the 2nd hard drive or the shared folder? What do you want to do? And how?
You just replied as I was typing this. Mind you that some programs will *not* run from a network share. As mpack noted, the shared folders are simply for copying files between host and guest. VirtualBox shared folders present a very simplified file system implementation, just enough to read/write files from/to the guest. Many applications can error when using shared folders, because they expect advanced features, like file locking or access controls, which don't exist for shared folders.

So, a 2nd VDI might be your only option after all.

[WeirdSystem]

Oh , in that case I'd better apply the VDI solution then .
Alright . Thanks !