Running VMs off external USB HD. Regular HD or SSD ?

The SSD drives I have been looking at so far all have USB 3.1 gen 2, which should be much faster than 3.0. (apperantly USB 3.1 gen 1, is just plain USB 3.0 so read the specs carefully).
Not sure if my HP Z-book supports 3.1 gen 2, will look into that.

A 10-times boost sounds good !
I would have taken the jump for just getting double speed.
 
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I'm pretty sure the secret mantra for all IT departments is "impeding efficient and effective business operations using all means possible. ".

When the new Google Drive app came out that would let you sync team drives to your local laptop, i put in a request to get it installed. We were already using the older one. 2 weeks later... all Google Drive apps blocked due to security concerns.

I now have a corporate laptop which i only use for Leave Requests and accessing Company Forms.

Although I share your sentiment, the Google apps block may actually be IT following corporate directives. At the end of the day, it's a free service that doesn't quite guarantee privacy of the information you put inside it and most companies will have an issue with that on principle. Can't blame IT on that... however, you can blame IT for not creating a safe alternative to do what you needed to.

I had something like that, but decided that at the end of the day, if I can't do my work because of what the company supplies me with, it should be their loss and not mine.
 
Based on my experience, VMs work, technically speaking, on an external HDD. They are slow, though. On an external SSD, they are smooth.

based on the benchmarks I've seen, external SSDs have a huge boost over external HDDs. Sequential read/writes are ~4x better, random reads/writes are 20+ times better.
 
JesperMP the SSD drives will make a world of difference but also the connection is a big factor to consider.

USB 3.0 is ok but for the best performance, Thunderbolt would be better by leaps and bounds which is why almost anyone doing video editing on external drives and working with large 4K video files uses thunderbolt system-wide.

The thing is that it does not come standard on most windows based laptops in most cases.

Having Thunderbolt available would be something to consider on your next laptop or could possibly be added if you are using a desktop.
 
The VM's do need to be on a separate HD apart from the OS and the VM Ware Workstation or Player or Virtual Box install resides but that HD should be internal for best performance and should be SSD for best performance.

Every laptop I have purchased for the past several years I got the RAM maxed out and made sure it had 2 hard drives that were SSD or I immediately changed them to SSD in as large of capacity as I could get on the second non-OS drive and 250-500 GB on the OS Drive.

This makes for the best laptop to run multiple VM's with and have almost desktop like performance from the VM's
 
Although I share your sentiment, the Google apps block may actually be IT following corporate directives. At the end of the day, it's a free service that doesn't quite guarantee privacy of the information you put inside it and most companies will have an issue with that

The Google suite is a paid service for us. All corporate email is via Gmail, and we are actively encouraged to use drive storage, Google sheets etc. Access requires 2 factor authentication and daily re-login. I actually quite like it especially Google Sheets,, great for commissioning documents.

But back to Jespers original issue.. I have 2 VMs on an external HDD.. both windows XP.. and they boot within a minute. But i actively manage the Virtual disk size and keep them as lean as possible. They are only about 4GB each.
 
The VM's do need to be on a separate HD apart from the OS and the VM Ware Workstation or Player or Virtual Box install resides ...

This isn't true, you can have all your VM files on the same disk as your OS and VMWare. You can make an argument about an increase in performance by having them separate but it's only slight assuming the primary disk is an SSD.
 
This isn't true, you can have all your VM files on the same disk as your OS and VMWare. You can make an argument about an increase in performance by having them separate but it's only slight assuming the primary disk is an SSD.

I never said you couldn't have them have them on the same drive as the OS and anyone who has ever used VMware knows you can as that's the most common method so not sure where you got that from and since the OP is already using VM's and has been for many years by his many past posts about the subject on this forum I really didn't see the need to state the obvious.

My reply simply said for best performance they should be on a separate disk which would be an SSD also for best performance.

VM's on a separate disk perform better because they do not share IOP's with the host OS and because in most cases they have more room.

Running a VM on a drive with less than enough free capacity makes them slow when doing snapshots and logs.

Also, create Fixed-Size Disks Instead of Dynamically Allocated Ones for best performance.

If both your disks are SSD try and run VM's from the disk where the host OS is and then from the separate drive and benchmark them and you will see a significant difference.

There are a ton of performance tweaks when it comes to VM's

We had to do many of these simulations in the lab when I was studying for my VMware VCAP and VCDX certifications so we got to see many surprising results.
 
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@diat150.

Basically our Host OS is locked down. Only IT can manage it. It is a corporate decision that takes no exception. They do not care if there are technical reasons that I should have direct access to the host OS.
Actually, I can understand it with all the security problems out there, but it sure is a PITA.

@Phil Buchanan.

About Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.1 gen2:
My PC has a Thunderbolt port, but it is always in use as it connects the docking station.
I am after a significantly better performance than my current spinning HD but I dont have to be at the cutting edge. So I think I will be fine with USB.

About same disk vs. seperate disk for performance:
Very interesting information.
 
@Phil Buchanan.

About Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.1 gen2:
My PC has a Thunderbolt port, but it is always in use as it connects the docking station.
I am after a significantly better performance than my current spinning HD but I dont have to be at the cutting edge. So I think I will be fine with USB.

About same disk vs. seperate disk for performance:
Very interesting information.

I only mention Thunderbolt as the increased bandwidth of Thunderbolt would remove a lot of lag from the VM's on external storage.

USB 3.1 is 10 Gigabits per second and the Thunderbolt 3 spec is 40 Gigabits per second.
 
So, I finally got around to actually getting a USB SSD.
It is a WD Passport with 512 GB. Not too expensive.


After a quick test, I feel that Windows boots 10 faster, and TIA portal loads 5 times faster.

Later I may try to do some more accurate speed tests.
But for now I am quite satisfied with this.
 
Don't ever involve the IT dept. Problem solved. We have a many laptops 'under the radar' we do what we like with. Makes for an easier life all round.
 
Cant comment on the VM but for the cost of SSD now, there isnt ANY reason why the whole PC shouldn't run on a SSD, or to run anything else on anything but a SSD. You can get a 1TB samsung on amazon for $250.

I switched mine to all SSD about a year ago and my stress level is lower, I find myself having extra time on site to tour and shoot the ****.

If I added up all the billable time I waited on a conventional hard drive to do what the hell I told it to do it would probably be in the 25K range.

If you're not using SSD then your wasting a lot of time you could have back, it really is that big of a difference.
 
And also I was intimidated to make the switch and what all would be involved with it. Ended up Cloning the existing drive to a new SSD with an external adapter. Installed the new drive, powered up and took off like nothing changed. The only thing I lost was my activations for my rockwell software, I had to re enter the product key where required.
 

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