Virtualbox has released version 5 of its VirtualBox virtualization software.

The main difference is the support of paravirtualization which should improve guest OSs' performance (Hyper-V for Windows and KVM for Linux).

 

As part of my virtualbox plugin support I am going to run some benchmarking SW to compare the 2 versions before I release the Virtualbox 5 compiled files.

 

My HW (listed in my signature) is:

• Intel Xeon E3-1231v3
  
• 32GB DDR3 ECC Memory
  
• unRAID 6.1.3
  

Guest OS and VM configuration:

• 2 CPUs (1 Core - 2 Threads)
  
• 4GB Memory
  
• Dedicated LAN port
  
• Windows 7 (x86 32bit)
  
• Display 64MB
  
• VirtualBox Extensions installed
  
• VirtualBox Guest Addition installed
  
• No paging file
  

Benchmarking Software:

• PassMark Performance 8
  
• NovaBench 3.0.4
  
• GeekBench (Free) 3
  
• ATTO 3.0.5 (over network share)
  
• ATTO 3.0.5 (over "Shared Folder")
  
• CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2 (over network share)
  
• CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2 (over "Shared Folder")
  
• iperf3 as server (unRAID client)
  
• iperf3 as client (unRAID server)
  

 

Before I start the testing I would appreciate any input/comments.

 

Placeholder for results

Is there anything in particular you are looking for comments on? Is there anything in particular you are looking into?

 

Bench-marking software looks like thorough compilation of processor, graphics, and network tests.

I am looking mainly at processor, network and disk io performance.

Graphics testing is less relevant as i am not passing through a gpu - only connected via rdp.

Any comment or suggestion as to additional benchmarking sw to consider.

Did you run these tests?

When upgraded to unraid 6 I switched to kvm and the VMs run a lot faster to a point that video plays now and

did not before.