VMware Workstation is the undisputed leader in desktop virtualization. However, VirtualBox, a product that has made great progress thanks to Sun and now developed by Oracle, continues to gain competitiveness.

Make no mistake, VMware Workstation - with a long list of supported guest OSes, powerful graphics display capabilities, full support for Windows 7, and skillful use of the latest advances in hardware development to best support virtual machines - remains the leader in this product category. But Oracle VM VirtualBox continues to follow in the footsteps of VMware Workstation, still providing a free version for personal use and significantly improving the performance of virtual machines.

As a result, application developers, IT professionals, and power users who want to try running multiple systems using different operating systems on their workstations have the freedom to choose.

For IT managers with large test and development workloads who need regular virtual machine creation, well-established management tools, and access to the VMware Assured Computing Environment (ACE), VMware Workstation remains the best option. However, it is also the most expensive product. $189 per user is a lot more than $50 for a volume license for Oracle VM VirtualBox.

But the initial price of the license (or lack of it) says little. Below we publish two reviews. One is dedicated to VMware Workstation 7.1, the other is Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2.

VMware Workstation 7.1

I tested VMware Workstation 7.1 on a Lenovo W510 mobile workstation with a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with all the latest updates.

I was able to install and run Autodesk AutoCAD 2011 on a virtual machine with one virtual quad-core processor under Windows control 7 professional. My Lenovo computer had a fairly powerful GPU Nvidia Quadro FX 880M.

The AutoCAD projects I worked with during testing quickly displayed on the screen. Performance was about the same as running AutoCAD directly on a Lenovo computer. There was some delay when rotating the image while other VMs were performing their tasks in background. (In this case, you can use the Futuremark PCMark Vantage test to determine performance). Workstation 7.1 supports OpenGL 2.1 in Windows virtual machines and demonstrated fairly smooth playback during the PCMark video test.

In keeping with VMware's very meticulous approach to creating virtual machines, Workstation 7.1 allowed me to build powerful systems that can run either eight processors or eight cores. This was useful not only for providing a lot of computing power, but also for distributing that power in order to avoid extra license fees for applications that are priced based on the number of processors or cores.

Other private improvements address issues with running virtual machines or related applications. In this version of Workstation, I was able to use automatic registration. My credentials were saved in memory, and when I started a Windows guest OS, the window for entering credentials did not appear.

Similar improvements have been made to applications running in a virtual machine. I could run Windows as a guest and drag AutoCAD 2011 from the Unity start menu (a long-used feature that makes a virtual machine look like it's the only system running on a given physical machine) directly onto the desktop of a physical PC. After that, to launch AutoCAD, it was enough to double-click on its shortcut. The shortcut remained on the desktop even after I exited Unity mode and closed VMware Workstation.

Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2

In January of this year, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems. Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2 is the first rebranded release of technology that Sun itself received through its acquisition of innotek GmbH in February 2008.

This family history is important because, firstly, it shows the great importance attached to this technology by its various owners, and secondly, it allows you to understand the reasons for the rather sluggish development of the product. IT managers who are looking into Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2 should watch how it evolves after Oracle took over the product.

On the technical side, VirtualBox 3.2 introduced support for Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 (not surprisingly) and experimental virtual machine support for Mac OS X Server (but this is already surprising). I was running VirtualBox on the same Lenovo W510 workstation described above. It is worth noting that it has an Intel Core i7 processor, now supported by VirtualBox 3.2. This virtualization platform worked as expected with the physical processor.

Taking advantage of the extended CPU support, I was able to use it new feature hot plug to allocate additional computing power to some guest systems after they are launched. When used with a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 Data Center, this feature worked great. Windows Server 2008 allows you to add processing power only in a "hot" mode.

Working with a virtual machine running CentOS 5.5, I could connect and disconnect processors. In all cases, this required using the interface command line VBoxManage. Since these processor manipulations are likely to be part of a broader process of load management, I think the command line is very well suited for making these settings because it allows you to execute scripts.

In the considered version of VirtualBox, it became possible to change the amount of RAM allocated to running 64-bit virtual machines. I was able to make changes to the allocation of physical memory between virtual machines using VirtualBox Guest Additions, which is a standard configuration item in my computing environment.

In this article, we will look at several ways to improve the performance of a virtual machine VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox, Microsoft Hyper-V or any other. Virtual machines are quite demanding on the characteristics of the computer, because during their operation several operating systems are running on the PC at the same time. As a result, the virtual machine may be significantly slower than the main operating system or even stutter.

In this article, we will look at several ways to improve the performance of a virtual machine, Oracle VirtualBox, Microsoft Hyper-V, or any other.

Content:

Dynamic or fixed virtual hard disk?

By creating virtual machine, you can create two different types of virtual hard drives. By default, the virtual machine uses a dynamic disk, which takes up the necessary space on the physical storage medium and grows only as it fills up.

For example, creating a virtual machine with a 30 GB dynamic disk will not immediately take up 30 GB hard drive computer. After installing the operating system and the necessary programs, its size will be about 10-15 GB. Only as data is added, it can increase up to 30 GB.

This is convenient from the point of view that the virtual machine will take up space on the hard disk, which is proportional to the amount of data stored on it. But, the operation of a dynamic hard disk is slower than a fixed one (sometimes also called distributed).

When creating a fixed disk, all 30 GB on the computer's hard disk will be allocated to the virtual machine disk immediately, regardless of the amount of data stored on it. That is, fixed HDD A virtual machine takes up more space on your computer's hard drive, but saving or copying files and data on it is faster. It is not so prone to fragmentation, since the space for it is allocated as large as possible, instead of being added in small parts.

Installing the VM Tools Pack

After installing a guest operating system on a virtual machine, the first thing to do is install a package of tools or drivers for your virtual machine, for example: VirtualBox Guest Additions or VMware Tools. Such packages contain drivers that will help the guest operating system work faster.

Installing them is simple. In VirtualBox, boot up the guest operating system and select Devices / Mount Additional Guest OS Disk Image… "This computer"

In VMware Workstation, select menu Virtual machine / Install the VMware Tools package... Then run the installer, which will appear as a separate disk in the folder "This computer" guest operating system.

Add the folder with the virtual machine to the exclusions of your antivirus program

The antivirus program, among others, also scans the files of the virtual machine, which reduces its performance. But the fact is that the antivirus program does not have access to files inside the guest operating system of the virtual machine. Therefore, such a scan is meaningless.

To get rid of a decrease in the performance of a virtual machine, you can add a folder with it to the exceptions of the antivirus program. Antivirus will ignore all files in this folder.

Intel VT-x or AMD-V activation

Intel VT-x and AMD-V are special virtualization technologies that are designed to provide greater performance for virtual machines. Modern Intel and AMD processors usually have this feature. But on some computers it is not automatically activated. To enable it, you need to go into the BIOS of the computer and activate it manually.

AMD-V is often already activated on the PC, if supported. And Intel VT-x is most often disabled. Therefore, make sure that the specified virtualization features are already enabled in the BIOS, and then enable them in the virtual machine.

More RAM

Virtual machines are demanding on the amount of available random access memory. Each virtual machine includes a complete operating system. Therefore, it is necessary to separate your PC operating system into two separate systems.

Microsoft recommends a minimum of 2 GB of RAM for their operating systems. Accordingly, such requirements are also relevant for the guest operating system of a Windows virtual machine. And if you plan to use third-party demanding software on a virtual machine, then even more RAM will be required for its normal operation.

If, after creating the virtual machine, it turned out that there is not enough RAM for its normal operation, then it can be added in the virtual machine settings.

Before doing this, make sure the virtual machine is powered off. Also, it is not recommended to provide a virtual machine with more than 50% of the virtual memory physically present on the computer.

If, having allocated 50% of your computer's memory for a virtual machine, it turned out that it did not work comfortably enough, then your computer may not have enough RAM to work normally with virtual machines. For normal operation of any virtual machine, 8 GB of RAM installed on the main PC will be enough.

Allocate more CPU

The main load during the operation of a virtual machine falls on the central processor. Thus, the more CPU power a virtual machine can take, the better (faster) it will work.

If the virtual machine is installed on a computer with a multi-core processor, then in the virtual machine settings for it, you can select several cores for its operation. A virtual machine on two or more CPU cores will run noticeably faster than on one.

Installing a virtual machine on a machine with a single-core processor is not recommended. Such a virtual machine will work slowly and its performance of any tasks will be inefficient.

Correct video settings

Video settings can also affect the speed of the virtual machine. For example, enabling 2D or 3D video acceleration in VirtualBox allows some applications to run much faster. The same applies to the possibility of increasing the video memory.

But, as in the case of RAM, a lot depends on the video adapter that is installed on the main computer.

Virtual machine and SSD drive

The first and best computer upgrade to date is installing an SSD drive on it. This will significantly speed up the operation of the computer, and, accordingly, the virtual machine installed on it.

Some users install virtual machines on another (HDD) disk of their computer, leaving only the main operating system on the SSD. This makes the virtual machine run slower. Free up space on the SSD drive and move the virtual machine to it. The difference in the speed of work will be felt from the first minutes.

If possible, do not place virtual machine disks on external storage media. They are even slower than the built-in HDD. Options are possible with connecting a virtual machine via USB 3.0, but USB 2.0 is out of the question - the virtual machine will work very slowly.

Suspension instead of closing

When you have finished working with a virtual machine, you can pause it instead of shutting it down completely.

The next time you launch the virtual machine application, you can turn on the virtual machine in the same way as usual. But it will load much faster and in exactly the same state and from the place where you finished working last time.

Suspending the guest operating system is very similar to using hibernation instead of shutting down the PC.

Improving performance inside the virtual machine

It is always necessary to remember that the operating system installed on the virtual machine is not much different from the one that runs on the main computer. Its work can be accelerated by following the same principles and using the same methods that are relevant for any other operating system.

For example, system performance will increase if you close background programs or those that automatically start at system startup. System performance is affected by the need to defragment the disk (if the virtual machine is located on the HDD), and so on.

Programs for working with virtual machines

Some users claim that Oracle VirtualBox is the fastest tool for working with a virtual machine, for others - VMware Workstation or Microsoft Hyper-V. But how fast a virtual machine will run on a particular computer depends on many factors: this is the version of the guest operating system, its type, system and virtual machine settings, the performance of the computer itself, etc. In any case, you can always try another program.

Fast:

When choosing a desktop virtualization platform today, users essentially have only two choices - VMware Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox. The remaining analogues of desktop products are either already out of production, or frankly fall short of the functionality of these two platforms.

At the same time, VMware Workstation is a full-fledged commercial product with a closed source code(source code is open only for VMware Player - a stripped-down version of Workstation), and Oracle VirtualBox - a platform that runs on top of many operating systems (an open source edition of VirtualBox OSE).

We will not touch performance issues here - they were considered earlier and, but these reviews are no longer relevant. In general, according to user reviews, both products show more or less the same performance in average conditions (although there is an opinion that VirtualBox is faster). This note compares and .

What VirtualBox platforms and VMware Workstation are both good:

• Intuitive GUI
• Convenient host network editor
• Virtual machine disks that grow as they fill with data (Thin Provisioning)
• Snapshot Technology
• Application technology in host OS from guest OS in seamless windows
• Support for a large number of guest OS, support for Windows and Linux as guest OS
• Support for 64-bit guest OS
• Support for Intel VT and AMD-V
• USB 2.0 devices in virtual machines
• Playing audio on host devices from a virtual machine
• Clipboard between guest and host OS
• 3D graphics support for games and other applications
• Support for importing virtual modules (Virtual Appliances)
• Improved guest OS drivers: VMware Tools and VirtualBox Guest Additions (both packages updated automatically)
• Both platforms support Memory Overcommit techniques (the so-called Memory Ballooning - redistribution of free physical memory between guest OSes of virtual machines)
• Both platforms support multi-processor virtual machines (at least 8 vCPUs)
• Expanding virtual disks (more convenient in Workstation)
• Copying files between virtual machine and host OS
• Both platforms have support for accessing the virtual machine console via an RDP server

Why you might choose VirtualBox over VMware Workstation:

• VirtualBox is absolutely free, and VMware Workstaion costs $207.90 according to the Russian price list as of March 2011 (when buying less than 10 licenses).
• VMware Workstation only runs on Windows and Linux hosts, while VirtualBox supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris hosts.
• "Teleportation" technology that allows you to move a running virtual machine to another VirtualBox host without having to stop it. This feature is not available in VMware Workstation
• VirtualBox has the ability to work not only with the native .VDI format, but also with .VMDK and .VHD. VMware Workstation only has the ability to run virtual machines from VMDK virtual disk images (although there is a free VMware Converter product for importing virtual machines from other formats).
• VirtualBox has more options for working from the command line (managing VMs, devices, snapshots and more)
• VirtualBox has better audio support for Linux hosts (Workstation mute on host OS, VirtualBox can play in parallel)
• VirtualBox has the ability to limit the consumption of CPU resources and I / O, VMware Workstation does not have this (only VMware vSphere can do this)
• VirtualBox has the ability to adjust video memory

Why choose VMware Workstation over VirtualBox:

• VMware Workstation is a commercial product, which means you can always count on support with a certain SLA level
• VMware Workstation has more features to support 3D graphics such as Windows Aero user interface, OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 3.0. The 3D acceleration itself works more stable than in VirtualBox.
• VMware Workstation has a Universal Print Driver.ThinPrint (no driver installation required in guest OS)
• Creating snapshots at specified intervals (), which allows you to protect virtual machines by analogy with the autosave feature (for example, as in Microsoft Word).
• Compact Virtual Disks - compression of virtual disks to give it to the needs of other systems.
• VMware Workstation has a wider functionality for working with virtual networking - switches, DHCP, NAT, and more (although VirtualBox also has NAT, Bridge Networking - this is subjectively more convenient in Workstation).
• VMware Workstation has the functionality of linked clones (Linked Clones) for virtual machines.
• Recording the activity of the virtual machine in video format, as well as in the form of a sequence of user actions (Guest Record / Replay).
• Workstation has the ability to integrate with development and testing environments (for example, Eclipse), as well as specialized functions for software developers (but VirtualBox has a cooler API).
• Protection of virtual machines with 256-bit encryption
• There are a few nice little things in Workstation - such as shortcuts to applications from the Start menu, Pause a Virtual Machine (not suspend), etc.

In general, if you do not know why exactly you need VMware Workstation, then feel free to choose the free VirtualBox. If you are a software developer or test engineer, then I recommend choosing VMware Workstation, which has many handy little things that you use on a daily basis that VirtualBox does not have.

Colleagues, if you notice any mistake in the comparison of the functionality or you have something to add to this comparison, please write about it in the comments.

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Selecting and installing a virtual machine.

Every advanced PC user sometimes has a desire to try some other operating system, but does not dare to install it on his work computer. Indeed, installing an unfamiliar OS is a very risky action. One wrong command can lose all the data on the disk. But today there is a way to try several operating systems on one computer at once, and, if desired, even at the same time! This method is called - virtual machine or virtual computer.

A virtual machine is a virtual computing environment in which a guest operating system can run. This operating system is launched second and runs in a separate window. You can also run programs in it and work as usual. You can create several such windows with different operating systems. The number of virtual machines installed on one computer is limited only by the resources of the computer itself.

A virtual machine is a program that you run from within your operating system. The program emulates a physical computer, so the virtual machine has:

As with a real machine, you can install an operating system on a virtual machine, whether it's Windows or *nix. Thus, you can test different operating systems without leaving your own.

You can easily exchange files between the main operating system (host) and the guest operating system (guest). This is done by simply dragging and dropping files from the client's file manager into the guest window or vice versa. The convenience of a virtual machine for testing an unattended installation is invaluable. It is enough just to connect a bootable ISO image instead of a CD-ROM in the virtual machine settings, and the installation of the system will go exactly the same as on a real machine.

Emulation - simulating the operation of one operating system through another, without loss functionality. Emulation is played by hardware or software.

Host (host system) - the operating system of the computer on which the VM is installed.

The guest operating system is the operating system running within the VM.

A virtual application is a fully configured application in a VM.

The Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) is a virtual application module that solves all the tasks of managing a VM.

VM Console - a graphical interface of the Virtual Machine that allows you to manage the main settings of the program.

After wandering around the Internet, I noticed two programs that allow you to use virtualization technology at home and are most often found in reviews - these are VirtualBox and VMWare.

Virtualization systems that exist today have much in common. In particular, each virtual machine recognizes a CD drive as well as a floppy drive. In addition, it is possible to work with virtual drives and disk images. Very useful is the ability to manually set the amount of RAM for each of the virtual machines, the list of connected devices, etc. Such flexible settings allow you to comfortably use the guest system. A very handy feature is the ability to pause the virtual machine at any time. This frees up the necessary hardware resources for the host system.

All the differences between existing virtual machines, in fact, come down only to the list of supported by them operating systems, as well as cost.

ORACLE VirtualBox - universal free virtual machine

virtual box- a very simple, powerful and free virtualization tool, developed with the support of the famous ORACLE corporation. It is free, open source. VirtualBox allows you to install as a "guest" almost any modern operating system, be it Windows, MacOS or any of the many members of the Linux family. The advantage of VirtualBox is a simple and clear user interface. VirtualBox supports networking, so your virtual OS can easily access the Internet. The "snapshots" feature of the operating system is very useful. The virtual machine writes “recovery points” to the hard drive, to which you can roll back the guest system at any time in case of errors or failures.

VMware Workstation - for serious tasks

VMware Workstation is a powerful, paid, highly reliable virtualization program that supports Windows and Linux. For MacOS virtualization, this machine is not intended. Due to its high reliability and the widest functionality, VMware Workstation is often used not just for testing, but even for the constant operation of virtual machines as servers, even for business applications, whether it be a firewall that separates an organization's network from the Internet or even a database server.

If we need just test some program or a new operating system, the best choice would be free virtual machine - ORACLE VirtualBox. It is free, supports any modern operating system and is highly configurable.

If we want to expand serious virtual solution requiring reliable, long-term operation, you should choose VMWare Workstation. Although this is a paid system, it guarantees stability for responsible tasks.

Installing a virtual machine.

Of the virtual machines discussed in the previous section, it is best to use VirtualBox. We will now look at how to install VirtualBox, and the next section will describe how to set it up.

Installing Oracle vm Virtualbox

The current version of Oracle VM VirtualBox can be downloaded from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads of the project, which contains links to download installation packages for Windows x86/x64, Linux, Solaris, and OS X. Windows environment must be run under a user account with administrative rights.

During the further installation of VirtualBox, a warning will be issued:

This means that when installing the VirtualBox network drivers, the current network connections will be reset and a temporary disconnection from the network will occur. If, for example, parallel to the installation, data is exchanged with network drive, then it will fail. If networking is not running, then briefly disabling the adapters will have no effect, and you must allow the installation to continue by clicking the Yes button. Otherwise, you must first complete work with network resources. After the installation is complete, the main program module of the VirtualBox user - Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager (Oracle VM VirtualBox manager) will be launched:

Installing Linux Ubuntu on an Oracle vm VirtualBox virtual machine

All actions for creating virtual machines, changing their settings, importing and exporting configurations, etc. can be performed using the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager (in Russian software - Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager) or using the VboxManage.exe command line utility. The latter has somewhat more options for setting up virtual machines, but is more difficult to use. Installing a guest OS on a virtual machine can be conditionally divided into 2 stages: - Creating the required virtual machine using VirtualBox; - Loading in the environment of the created virtual machine from the system installation disk and following the instructions of the installation wizard. The boot source (Linux distribution media) is determined by the virtual machine settings. It can be a real or virtual CD/DVD drive, floppy disk, HDD, boot disk image, or the local network. By default, the boot order is Floppy, CD-ROM, Hard Drive, Network. This order can be changed in the virtual machine settings. When starting VirtualBox for the first time, the main window of the program is displayed with a welcome message and the Create button is activated to create a new VM:

When creating a new virtual machine, the following parameters are defined: - name of the virtual machine. In accordance with it, a directory with virtual machine files will be created. The default is a subdirectory under C:\Documents and Settings\Username\VirtualBox VMs\ on Windows XP and C:\Users\User\VirtualBox VMs\ on Windows 7 and later.

The type of operating system that will be installed on the virtual machine. In this case - Linux - OS version. In this case, Ubuntu.

Other options can be left at their defaults, as they are already selected based on the hardware configuration of the real machine and according to the type and version of the operating system installed on the virtual machine. If necessary, the parameters can be determined based on your own preferences, for example, increase the amount of RAM allocated to the virtual machine.

Here is an example of allocating 1024 MB of RAM to a virtual machine, instead of the recommended 512 MB. When allocating memory, you need to take into account its actual amount and the minimum requirements of the guest OS. If there are difficulties in choosing this item, use the values ​​recommended by the program. Incorrect allocation of memory between real and virtual machines can lead to a decrease in the performance of both.

The hard disk of a virtual machine (virtual hard disk) is a special format file in the Windows file system. A virtual disk can be created either dynamic or fixed. A dynamic disk is created not for the entire volume specified by the settings, but for a part of it, and grows as necessary during the operation of the virtual machine. To get the maximum performance of the guest operating system, it is better to choose a fixed virtual hard disk, and to save disk space - a dynamic one.

VirtualBox allows you to use several different virtual disk data formats:

Choosing a format that differs from the recommended one makes sense if you plan to use the virtual machine created using VirtualBox in the environment of other virtualization software products (VMWare, MS Virtual PC, QEMU). Most of the settings that are defined during the creation of a new virtual machine can be changed at any time, if necessary.

For the created virtual machine, the Configure button becomes active, which allows you to change some of its settings, add or remove virtual devices, change their operating modes, and manage the distribution of real operating system resources. To get acquainted with the Ubuntu Linux guest OS, the initial settings made when creating the virtual machine are quite enough. Therefore, you can immediately start starting the VM by clicking the Start button. After starting the VM, a message is displayed on the screen about the use of Auto-capturing the keyboard

This means that when the cursor is within the VM window, keyboard input will be performed for the virtual machine. By default, right Ctrl is used to switch keyboard input between real and virtual machine windows. The current input state is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the virtual machine window.

The green color of the arrow in means that the keyboard input will be performed for the virtual machine, the gray one - for the real one.

To install an operating system on a virtual machine, you will need to boot from installation disk. In the VirtualBox environment, it is possible to boot not only from standard devices (CD / DVD drive, flash drive, network ...) but also using a virtual drive created on the basis of a boot disk image. Typically, Linux distributions are distributed as ISO-9660 image files (files with the extension iso) and VirtualBox allows you to avoid burning the image to a CD, but simply connect such a file directly to the virtual machine as a virtual drive with installed media based on the contents of iso -image. When you first start the virtual machine, when there is no guest operating system installed yet, VirtualBox will prompt you to select a boot device

Instead of a physical drive, you can choose an image file such as ubuntu-13.04-desktop-i386.iso , which will be mounted as a virtual device with the Ubuntu 13.04 installation CD/DVD. Clicking the Continue button will boot from the virtual drive and begin installing the guest operating system (Ubuntu)

The process of installing a guest OS is no different from installing it on a real machine. You can choose the language for the system to be installed (usually Russian), time zone, keyboard layout, etc. You can leave most of the settings at default, including Installation type

During installation, you must specify the computer name, user, password, and login mode:

Further installation of Ubuntu is performed without any user intervention and ends with prompts to restart the computer. Compared to installing the system on real computer hardware, installing on a virtual machine is slower, which is to be expected. The degree of performance degradation mainly depends on the speed of the real computer hardware.

When you first boot a newly installed operating system, the VirtualBox manager will automatically disable the virtual drive based on the disk image with the Ubuntu distribution, the boot will be performed from the virtual hard disk and upon completion, the login prompt will be displayed on the screen.

Virtual machines such as Virtualbox are used to emulate virtual hardware and run multiple operating systems on a computer. The better your CPU and the more RAM you have, the faster the virtual machines on your computer will run.
I offer a few tips to help you save time when setting up virtual machines for the first time. This will be useful for working with VirtualBox, VMware, Parallels, or any other virtual machine.

Be sure to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions or VMware Tools

After installing the guest operating system in the virtual machine, the first thing to do is to install software virtual machine - "Guest Additions for VirtualBox" or VMware Tools for VMware". These packages include special drivers that will help your guest operating system run faster on your host machine's hardware.

Installing the package is easy - in VirtualBox, once the guest operating system is loaded, click the Devices menu button and select "Install Guest Additions". If you are using VMware, select "Install VMware Tools" from the Virtual Machine menu. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation - if you are using Windows as a guest operating system, it will be the same as installing any other application.

Make sure you have the most latest version Guest Additions - If you see a notification that an update is available for Guest Additions or VMware Tools, you should install it.

Creating a fixed size disks on initial setup

When creating a virtual machine, you can create two various types virtual disks. By default, the program usually suggests using dynamically allocated disks that grow with the guest OS footprint.

For example, if you create a new virtual machine with a dynamically allocated disk with a maximum size of 30 GB, it will not take up to 30 GB of hard disk space at once. After installing the operating system and programs, the disk can only take up to 10 GB. As files are added to virtual disk, it will expand to maximum size in 30 GB.

This can be convenient - each virtual machine will not take up unreasonably much space on your hard drive. However, this is slower than creating a fixed disk size (a disk with preallocated space). When you create a fixed disk size, all 30 GB will be occupied immediately on your computer.

There is a trade-off here - a fixed disk size takes up more hard disk space, but works with a virtual hard drive faster. You will also get rid of file fragmentation - the space will be occupied by a large block instead of smaller pieces being added all over the disk.

Exclude the virtual machine directory in your antivirus

Your antivirus can scan virtual machine files as they are accessed, slowing down performance. The antivirus will not be able to detect a virus inside a virtual machine running on your guest operating system, so this check only hurts.

To speed up the process, you can add your machine's virtual directory to the antivirus author's exclusion list. Once it is in the list, your antivirus will ignore all files in that directory.

Allocate more memory

Virtual machines love a lot of virtual memory. Microsoft recommends 2 GB of RAM for 64-bit Windows 7, and this recommendation also applies to Windows 7 x32 when running in a virtual machine. If you are running large applications in a virtual machine, you may want to allocate more than 2 GB of RAM.

You can allocate more RAM in your virtual machine's settings dialog (the virtual machine must be turned off to do this). If your computer does not have enough memory to comfortably work with a virtual machine, you may notice a very large decrease in computer performance when using a paging file on your hard drive.

Allocate more processors

If you have a computer with multiple processors or cores, you can allocate additional processors for your virtual machine from the VM settings window. A VM with a dual-core (or quad-core) processor will be more responsive.

If you are going to install OS of MS-Windows family and in the future to be able to use more cores during installation, specify 2 cores in order to install the correct HAL, after installation you can turn off the machine and set 1 core by default for everyday use. But for the future, you can always add kernels without uninstalling the OS. The Linux VM can dynamically detect any number of cores when the OS boots.

Adjust video settings

Tweaking your video settings and allocating more video memory will also help improve the speed of your virtual machine. For example, enabling 2D acceleration in VirtualBox improves video playback in virtual machines, enabling 3D acceleration will allow you to use some 3D applications.

By and large, you need to minimize the use of 3D for example Windows 7 by disabling Aero.

Make sure the Intel VT-x or AMD-V features are enabled

Intel VT-x and AMD-V are special processor extensions that improve virtualization speed. New Intel and AMD processors usually include these features. However, some computers do not automatically enable VT-x or AMD-V - you will have to enable this setting in your computer's BIOS.

To determine if your Intel processor Intel VT extension, use the utilities that show system information. If your processor supports this feature, but the option is not available in your virtual machine, you must enable this feature in your computer's BIOS. This setting is usually enabled by default on motherboards with AMD processors.

Put the virtual machine files on a different drive

Disk performance can limit the speed of your virtual machine. Placing virtual machine files on a separate physical disk or not on the system disk can improve performance. Your virtual machine and system will not concurrently read and write from the same disk.

However, you should not run the virtual machine from an external drive (USB) - this will be much slower.

1. Dedicating additional processors is rarely a good idea. Use 1 CPU for desktop OS.
2. Try not to use graphical hypervisors for server operating systems.
3. Don't allocate more cores to running VMs than you have on your computer.