VMware VirtualBox Hyper-V HDD Benchmark Test
Let's measure the HDD performance of the three major software (VMware Workstation Player, Oracle VirtualBox, Microsoft Hyper-V) of a virtual PC running on a Windows PC. HDD is a bottleneck of the whole system, so it is a good index for ease of use.
I have high expectations for Hyper-V, which is a hypervisor system.
Environment
Host PC spec
| Item | Contents |
|---|---|
| CPU | Core i5-430M ( 2 cores + SMT) |
| Mem | 8GB |
| HDD controler | AHCI SATA 300 |
| SSD | Samsung SSD 850Evo 250GB |
| OS | Windows10 Pro x64 20H2 |
| VM support | VT-x SLAT |
Virtual Software
| Product | Version |
|---|---|
| VMware Workstation 16 Player | 16.0.0 build-16894299 |
| ORACLE VirtualBox 6.1 | 6.1.16r140961 + ExtensionPack |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Windows10 20H2 first gen. |
Gest OS env.
| Item | Contents |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows10 x86 20H2 |
| CPU | 2 Core |
| Mem | 3GB |
| HDD | OS:20GB, Target:2GB(pre-allocated) |
HDD controller for each virtual machine
| Product | HDD controller |
|---|---|
| VMware | PVSCSI |
| VirtualBox | LSI SAS |
| Hyper-V | Hyper-V SCSI |
For VirtualBox, I tried NVMe and VirtIO SCSI, but they didn't recognize it.
Benchmark
- CrystalDiskMark ver. 7.0.0h
- diskspd ver.2.0.21a
Results
CrystalDiskMark
All settings such as options are left at their default values.
Sequencial test
VMware and VirtualBox have almost the same tendency. Hyper-V is struggling.
Random test
VMware and VirtualBox have almost the same tendency. Only in the random test of Q32T16, Hyper-V is the top with an overwhelming difference
diskspd
The parameters are as follows.
diskspd.exe -d60 -o4 -h -L -t4 -W -w20 -c512M E:\test.dat
Throughput
The amount of transfer per second. VMware is fast.
IOPS
VMware is fast.
Latency
PVSCSI has the lowest latency due to its high throughput.
CPU occupancy
Demonstrate the true character of Hyper-V. Pay attention to the low CPU occupancy. VMware is also doing its best with the effect of PVSCSI. SAS VirtualBox is a disadvantage.
Summary
Overall, VMware with PVSCSI is number one because of its high throughput and low CPU occupancy.
I was expecting Hyper-V, but the low CPU occupancy is as expected, but it is a pity that the performance did not come out by that much.
Perhaps because of the device emulation of SAS, VirtualBox has a throughput that is not as high as VMware, and the CPU occupancy rate is extremely high. I hope that if VirtIO can be used, it will have characteristics similar to VMware's PVSCSI. If you know how to use VirtIO on Windows 10, please let me know.
