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nnz
Contributor
Contributor
‎02-27-2015 01:19 PM

Workstation + Intel DC P3700 NVMe SSD: Not getting the expected performance, do I need a NVMe driver for the virtual guest OS?

Hi,

today I installed a brand new Intel DC P3700 NVMe SSD 400GB. Installed Intel's latest firmware and NVMe drivers. In the host environment (Win 8.1 x64), the SSD performs as expected (ultra-fast). Smiley Happy

Then I copied a VM to the P3700 and started it from there. While the VM isn't exactly slow, the virtual disk performance is far from expected. Is there anything I can do to "passthrough" the P3700's host performance to the virtual guest? A NVMe driver for VM guests?

CrystalDiskMark for P3700 SSD on the host:

CrystalDiskMark_P3700_400GB_IntelNVMeDriver.png

CrystalDiskMark for the virtual disk sitting on the P3700 (4K and 4KQD32 performance is significantly degraded):

CrystalDiskMark_P3700_400GB_IntelNVMeDriver_VM.png

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2 Replies
Forge64
Contributor
Contributor
‎08-19-2015 04:48 PM

You're seeing the overhead of the vmdk. There is no driver, the system isn't passing the NVMe device through to the VM, it's just putting a vmdk on it.

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huxiang
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎08-23-2015 10:29 PM

Hi nnz,

If you install guest OS to a VMDK file and then put the VMDK to SSD, guest OS does not need to install driver for the SSD device. And in this case, guest OS should be aware that it's running on a SSD so that guest OS can apply optimization for the hard disk.

Based on your screen shot, I assume you are using Win 8.1 as guest OS. You can run dfrgui.exe in guest OS and check the "Media type" to see if it is "Solid state drive" or "Hard disk drive". "Solid state drive" is expected here.

BTW, could you please provide more information for your problem? I'll see if I can help you on this.

VMware Workstation Version (like: 11.1.2 build-2780323):

Virtual Disk type (IDE, SCSI or SATA):

Guest OS Version (like: Win 8.1 x64):

VMtools Version (like: 9.9.3, build-2759765):

Thanks,

Shawn

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