Solving Slow Virtual Machine Problems
With the increasing popularity of Virtual Machines comes an issue that many may not be aware of. This problem is an age-old issue that has affected systems from the very early days of storage. It can cause hard drive failure leading to expensive data loss scenarios necessitating data recovery professionals. This problem is, of course, fragmentation.
Virtual machines must still make use of the slowest part of any modern computer system: hard drive technology. Hard Drives can be partitioned to appear as dedicated individual devices, these devices are then often utilized to store virtual partitions and virtual operating systems. Underneath this “virtual” layer, the hardware is storing data as it always has, in a fragmented inefficient manner.
Fragmentation occurs on all hard drives and is part of the way the operating system stores the data on a disk. It won’t lay it down nice and neatly in one continuous block, but will lay it wherever there is a space. One file could literally be split into many separate places on the hard disk and this is fragmentation. If you have one OS running it can be bad but if you are running virtual machines the problems is far more serious.
What is more, the premature wear that all of this fragmentation can cause to the hard disk storage can dramatically reduce the useable life of the storage below. Even complex, high performance, RAID arrays can be reduced to a snail like crawl due to high levels of fragmentation. If this problem starts to show itself on a number of the storage devices in any array you could be left with a situation where data recovery is your only option.
Each operating system will have it’s own method of dealing with file fragmentation (or not as the case may be). Whilst Mac OS X will automatically defragment a file under the size of 20mb, windows pays scant regard to how badly files are fragmented. Other systems use a variety of different methods to combat the problem.
Defragmentation utilities can take care of this problem, however, running them practically ties up the machine until completion, slowing the machine to a crawl. So what can be done to remove this issue? There are a number of possibilities that can be tried.
Scheduling a defragmentation is a good bet as you can let it run whilst you are doing another task or perhaps out to lunch. Third party applications can do this extremely well.
Use separate hard disks for your Virtual Machine software. While this may appear to fly in the face of VM’s in the first place, having a robust and business capable solution is in most cases the driving factor. Some astute companies will even have a dedicated hard disk array solely for the purpose of running VM software if there is a business case for it.
Ensuring your systems are working in tip top condition is vital to maintaining a productive IT infrastructure. For more great computing tips visit the IT Support Fareham , or click here for hard drive repair information and raid data recovery advice.
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