VMware VM Generates 100% Disk Activity

windows vmware-player

6,555

I was able to finally resolve this.

It turns out my new high end Dell had a problem in the BIOS that prevented USB ports from running at their optimum speed. Disk access became a major bottleneck that virtually brought the VM (which had plenty of resources) to a halt.

At one point Dell came and replaced the motherboard, which obviously did nothing. But a BIOS update did resolve the issue.

6,555

Jonathan Wood

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Jonathan Wood almost 2 years

I have a fast new Windows desktop computer running Windows 8.1 with 32GB of RAM.

When I run a VM on this computer, the VM is extremely slow for about the first half hour or so of use. And if I look at the drive activity during this time, I see it remains close to 100%.

So I moved my VM to a SSD but I see the same result. I just now brought up a Windows 7 VM. All I did was open the desktop and did nothing else. But I still see the disk activity on my SSD is almost solid at 100%.

For the VM, I've allocated both 8GB and 16GB RAM, 60GB disk, and 4 of my 8 cores.

I have a similar configuration on a Windows laptop and don't seem to have this problem.

Can anyone suggestion where I should look to resolve this?
- Logman about 10 years
  
  this could be a lot of things, are these guest vms fresh clean installs? kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/…
- Jonathan Wood about 10 years
  
  Well, I created a new VM using a Windows disk. But then I made copies and modified some of them. So mostly I would say the answer is yes.
- Daniel B about 10 years
  
  Is the virtual disk fixed-size or dynamically growing?
- Jonathan Wood about 10 years
  
  @DanielB: I'm not sure but whatever is the default. How do I tell.
- Logman about 10 years
  
  does the original vm (master) act the same way?
- Daniel B about 10 years
  
  @JonathanWood That’s easy. VMware calls this a “preallocated” disk.
- Jonathan Wood about 10 years
  
  @DanielB: No, mine doesn't say "preallocated disk".
- Daniel B over 9 years
  
  Heh, completely forgot about this question. It might also be worth noting that Windows will automatically run “maintenance” when it’s idle. This can produce quite a lot of disk load, especially because it includes defragmenting the disk (if needed).