January 8, 201511 yr Good morning, Just as the subject states, when I launch my Windows 8.1 VM and open task manager (on Windows) the ram usage is sitting at 96% +/-. I have also noticed that my HDD activity is also sitting at around 50% (I have 2 drives in the VM, one SSD that houses the vm, the other a storage drive passed through via xml). I created the VM using VM Manager allowing min 512 - max 5gb ram. Looking at the VM manager at any given time it lists that the vm is using 688 - 800 mb ram. I have never seen it go any higher. The main dashboard for Unraid shows aroung 97% ram used which sounded close to being correct (8gb installed on the system, allocating 5 to the vm). Is this expected behavior? The VM seems sluggish when viewing it over vnc, though I suspect that might just be the case using the web vnc viewer. Thanks for reading and any thoughts or things to try are welcomed!
January 8, 201511 yr Good morning, Just as the subject states, when I launch my Windows 8.1 VM and open task manager (on Windows) the ram usage is sitting at 96% +/-. I have also noticed that my HDD activity is also sitting at around 50% (I have 2 drives in the VM, one SSD that houses the vm, the other a storage drive passed through via xml). I created the VM using VM Manager allowing min 512 - max 5gb ram. Looking at the VM manager at any given time it lists that the vm is using 688 - 800 mb ram. I have never seen it go any higher. The main dashboard for Unraid shows aroung 97% ram used which sounded close to being correct (8gb installed on the system, allocating 5 to the vm). Is this expected behavior? The VM seems sluggish when viewing it over vnc, though I suspect that might just be the case using the web vnc viewer. Thanks for reading and any thoughts or things to try are welcomed! Can you share the XML for your VM here?
January 8, 201511 yr Author I think the 50% HDD activity is due to the lack of ram. I think windows is using the HDD for virtual memorg and causing that to spike. Keeping in mind I'm nearly clueless when it comes to VM at the moment , here is my current xml file: <domain type='kvm' id='2'> <name>Windows</name> <uuid>a73bc503-28bb-7805-4a67-ef262dab5818</uuid> <memory unit='KiB'>5242880</memory> <currentMemory unit='KiB'>649216</currentMemory> <vcpu placement='static'>3</vcpu> <resource> <partition>/machine</partition> </resource> <os> <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-2.1'>hvm</type> <boot dev='hd'/> </os> <features> <acpi/> <apic/> </features> <clock offset='localtime'> <timer name='rtc' tickpolicy='catchup'/> <timer name='pit' tickpolicy='delay'/> <timer name='hpet' present='yes'/> </clock> <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff> <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot> <on_crash>restart</on_crash> <devices> <emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64</emulator> <disk type='file' device='disk'> <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/> <source file='/mnt/vm/Windows/Windows.qcow2'/> <backingStore/> <target dev='hda' bus='virtio'/> <alias name='virtio-disk0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/> </disk> <disk type='block' device='disk'> <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/> <source dev='/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDT721010SLA360_STF610MH3DUM6K'/> <backingStore/> <target dev='hdb' bus='virtio'/> <alias name='virtio-disk1'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x06' function='0x0'/> </disk> <disk type='file' device='cdrom'> <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/> <source file='/mnt/vm/virtio-win-0.1-94.iso'/> <backingStore/> <target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/> <readonly/> <alias name='ide0-1-0'/> <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' target='0' unit='0'/> </disk> <controller type='usb' index='0'> <alias name='usb0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x2'/> </controller> <controller type='pci' index='0' model='pci-root'> <alias name='pci.0'/> </controller> <controller type='ide' index='0'> <alias name='ide0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/> </controller> <interface type='bridge'> <mac address='52:54:00:b2:c4:af'/> <source bridge='br0'/> <target dev='vnet0'/> <model type='virtio'/> <alias name='net0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/> </interface> <serial type='pty'> <source path='/dev/pts/0'/> <target port='0'/> <alias name='serial0'/> </serial> <console type='pty' tty='/dev/pts/0'> <source path='/dev/pts/0'/> <target type='serial' port='0'/> <alias name='serial0'/> </console> <input type='tablet' bus='usb'> <alias name='input0'/> </input> <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/> <input type='keyboard' bus='ps2'/> <graphics type='vnc' port='5900' autoport='yes' websocket='5700' listen='0.0.0.0'> <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/> </graphics> <video> <model type='vmvga' vram='9216' heads='1'/> <alias name='video0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/> </video> <memballoon model='virtio'> <alias name='balloon0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x0'/> </memballoon> </devices> </domain>
January 8, 201511 yr Author So after looking at the xlm I noticed <currentMemory unit='KiB'>649216</currentMemory> Not sure why that was so low, so I stopped the VM, changed that value and the ram issues appear to be fixed for now. Was this set because of the Min - Max options in the VM Manager plugin when I created the windows vm? I think I did set that low assuming that the vm would be able to scale up the memory as needed. I guess that is not the case? Jonp can you give me a shot back about what the min-max was to do in that scenario and also give my xml a look over to see if I missed anything else? Much appreciated!
January 9, 201511 yr So after looking at the xlm I noticed <currentMemory unit='KiB'>649216</currentMemory> Not sure why that was so low, so I stopped the VM, changed that value and the ram issues appear to be fixed for now. Was this set because of the Min - Max options in the VM Manager plugin when I created the windows vm? I think I did set that low assuming that the vm would be able to scale up the memory as needed. I guess that is not the case? Jonp can you give me a shot back about what the min-max was to do in that scenario and also give my xml a look over to see if I missed anything else? Much appreciated! Min Max is supposed to use memory ballooning. I haven't experimented with that much at all yet where I set a min / max, so you're treading into untested territory with me on that. I always use current memory without specifying a min and max and just use the exact amount of RAM I need for the VM. That's just been my approach. Experimenting with more advanced tricks with memory ballooning and VMs is something I will probably be doing when I can come up for air from other more pressing matters.
January 9, 201511 yr Author Thank you for the reply and explanation. After changing that setting my machine seems to be working pretty well. I do have one Windows HTPC on my network that has trouble communication to the vm for some reason and I can't quite figure out why. They can see each other but when I tried transferring some files back and forth between the 2 machines and it was not having it; the transfer speed was super slow. The VM also houses my PVR and that HTPC is the only one having buffering issues, again due to some network hiccup (of course it is attached to my main television, sigh). Heard anything like this before? My server has but 1 NIC shared between the VM and Unraid but I don't see that as an issue anywhere but that machine
January 9, 201511 yr Thank you for the reply and explanation. After changing that setting my machine seems to be working pretty well. I do have one Windows HTPC on my network that has trouble communication to the vm for some reason and I can't quite figure out why. They can see each other but when I tried transferring some files back and forth between the 2 machines and it was not having it; the transfer speed was super slow. The VM also houses my PVR and that HTPC is the only one having buffering issues, again due to some network hiccup (of course it is attached to my main television, sigh). Heard anything like this before? My server has but 1 NIC shared between the VM and Unraid but I don't see that as an issue anywhere but that machine Tough to diagnose without more info or looking at the setup. Would need to rely on some others here with a similar setup to chime in. I personally use chromecasts, an Asus cube google TV box, ouyas, and a direct av connection from unraid for playback of media content, so no windows HTPCs. That said in have copied plenty of files and content back in forth from other macs and PCs in my setup and never had a problem.
January 9, 201511 yr Thank you for the reply and explanation. After changing that setting my machine seems to be working pretty well. I do have one Windows HTPC on my network that has trouble communication to the vm for some reason and I can't quite figure out why. They can see each other but when I tried transferring some files back and forth between the 2 machines and it was not having it; the transfer speed was super slow. The VM also houses my PVR and that HTPC is the only one having buffering issues, again due to some network hiccup (of course it is attached to my main television, sigh). Heard anything like this before? My server has but 1 NIC shared between the VM and Unraid but I don't see that as an issue anywhere but that machine There is a driver for memory balloon on the virtio drivers iso. Maybe that needs to be installed. For network performance you could try turning off cpu offloading in unRAID and in the vm. For unRAID run these from the command line with eth0 as the name of your ethernet interface and br0 the name of your network bridge. In windows you'd have to go to the network device settings. ethtool -K eth0 gso off ethtool -K eth0 tso off ethtool -K eth0 sg off ethtool -K eth0 gro off ethtool -K br0 gso off ethtool -K br0 tso off ethtool -K br0 sg off ethtool -K br0 gro off
January 13, 201511 yr Thank you for the reply and explanation. After changing that setting my machine seems to be working pretty well. I do have one Windows HTPC on my network that has trouble communication to the vm for some reason and I can't quite figure out why. They can see each other but when I tried transferring some files back and forth between the 2 machines and it was not having it; the transfer speed was super slow. The VM also houses my PVR and that HTPC is the only one having buffering issues, again due to some network hiccup (of course it is attached to my main television, sigh). Heard anything like this before? My server has but 1 NIC shared between the VM and Unraid but I don't see that as an issue anywhere but that machine There is a driver for memory balloon on the virtio drivers iso. Maybe that needs to be installed. For network performance you could try turning off cpu offloading in unRAID and in the vm. For unRAID run these from the command line with eth0 as the name of your ethernet interface and br0 the name of your network bridge. In windows you'd have to go to the network device settings. ethtool -K eth0 gso off ethtool -K eth0 tso off ethtool -K eth0 sg off ethtool -K eth0 gro off ethtool -K br0 gso off ethtool -K br0 tso off ethtool -K br0 sg off ethtool -K br0 gro off This. When you create a WIN8 VM using virtio for the pcie bus, you have to load the Red Hat SCSI driver from the virtio CD/iso otherwise you will not see any available drives during the install. Once the VM is finished being built, you will notice that you have at least 2 unknown devices in Device Manager...one is the NIC and one is the memory balloon. For each of these you need to install the appropriate driver from the same windows virtio cd/iso. Just update driver and point it to the appropriate folder on that CD. If you built a WIN8 VM and your virtio driver cd is D:, the path would be D:\WIN8\AMD64 John
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