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This problem exists on all versions of VMware Server including 1.0.3 and 1.0.4. I have verified that it still exists on the 2.0 Beta.
Problem: Approximately 80 to 100% increase in Disk I/O within a VM. The VM becomes unusable.
Details: When running VMware Server (any version) on top of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition Service Pack 2, Windows virtual machines become extremely slow.
Test Description: To confirm the problem we ran two tests. We used the same host (described below) for both tests. We used the exact same virtual machine (described below) for both tests. We ran the exact same test using IO Meter. The only difference between the first test and the second test was the Host OS. For the first test it was Windows Server 2003 32 bit. We then flattened and reloaded the server with Windows Server 64 bit.
Hardware: DL380G5 2 Proc/2.66GHz 8GB Mem, 2-72GB O/S, 4-146GB disks
Host OS: First Test: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x32 Edition Service Pack 2 Second Test: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition Service Pack 2 VMware Server 2.0 Beta. (Also tested on 1.4.1 and 1.3.1)
IO Meter 2006.07.27 used to verify the condition.
Guest OS: Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x32 Edition Service Pack 2
IO Meter shows a consistent 60 to 100% decrease in disk IO performance on the 64 Bit host OS version. We have tested this on both AMD and Intel based hardware. It appears to be limited to AMD.
Has anyone seen this in their VMware Server environments?
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