[PVE-User] Very slow server (RAW IDE discs and KVM)

[Erik van Ast]

Hi Holger,

Thank you for your answer.

I have replaced the drivers with VIRTIO driver, but the system still has the same problems.
This is my ATOP result when installing 2 Windows Updates on the 2003 machine (102) :

proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images/102# atop
ATOP - /?                 2011/08/16  14:34:48               10 seconds elapsed
PRC | sys   1.18s | user   1.79s | #proc    135 | #zombie    0 | #exit      1 |
CPU | sys     10% | user     14% | irq       0% | idle    217% | wait    159% |
cpu | sys      6% | user      8% | irq       0% | idle     60% | cpu002 w 26% |
cpu | sys      4% | user      5% | irq       0% | idle     57% | cpu003 w 34% |
cpu | sys      0% | user      1% | irq       0% | idle     46% | cpu001 w 53% |
cpu | sys      0% | user      0% | irq       0% | idle     54% | cpu000 w 46% |
CPL | avg1   4.03 | avg5    2.75 | avg15   1.44 | csw   105672 | intr   64938 |
MEM | tot    7.8G | free  836.5M | cache   1.2G | buff  301.1M | slab  142.8M |
SWP | tot    7.0G | free    7.0G |              | vmcom   5.4G | vmlim  10.9G |
DSK |         sda | busy    100% | read     278 | write    194 | avio   21 ms |
NET | transport   | tcpi     250 | tcpo     278 | udpi       0 | udpo       0 |
NET | network     | ipi      264 | ipo      278 | ipfrw      0 | deliv    258 |
NET | tap106   0% | pcki       3 | pcko      38 | si    0 Kbps | so    4 Kbps |
NET | tap102   0% | pcki       0 | pcko      38 | si    0 Kbps | so    4 Kbps |
NET | eth0     0% | pcki     245 | pcko     289 | si   17 Kbps | so  139 Kbps |
NET | vmbr0  ---- | pcki     242 | pcko     234 | si   13 Kbps | so  135 Kbps |
NET | lo     ---- | pcki      44 | pcko      44 | si   12 Kbps | so   12 Kbps |

  PID  SYSCPU  USRCPU  VGROW  RGROW  RDDSK  WRDSK  ST EXC S  CPU CMD     1/1
12875   1.08s   1.39s     0K    -4K  6377K  6878K  --   - S  25% kvm
 2533   0.09s   0.33s     0K     0K     0K    97K  --   - S   4% kvm
12908   0.00s   0.02s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% apache2
12612   0.00s   0.02s     0K     0K     0K     4K  --   - S   0% pvedaemon
12496   0.00s   0.02s     0K     0K     0K     4K  --   - S   0% pvedaemon
12919   0.00s   0.01s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% apache2
12476   0.01s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - R   0% atop
 2430   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% apache2
12886   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% qm
 2922   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% sshd
 2173   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     4K  --   - S   0% master
 2079   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     4K  --   - S   0% rsyslogd
 2355   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% ntpd
   24   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% bdi-default
  802   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K    20K  --   - S   0% kjournald
 1752   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K     0K     0K  --   - S   0% kjournald
12922   0.00s   0.00s     0K     0K      -      -  NE   1 E   0% <trivial-rewr>

And here the info on the VM itself (shows that I changed to Virtio as far as I can see) :

proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images/102# qemu-img info vm-102-disk-1.raw
image: vm-102-disk-1.raw
file format: raw
virtual size: 40G (42949672960 bytes)
disk size: 24G
proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images/102# cat /etc/qemu-server/102.conf
name: test1
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1-mm34.iso,media=cdrom
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: w2k3
memory: 2048
sockets: 1
vlan0: virtio=7E:01:B4:78:25:72
onboot: 0
cores: 1
virtio0: local:102/vm-102-disk-1.raw

Kind regards / Mit freundlichem Gruß,
Erik 

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Holger Hampel | RA Consulting [mailto:h.hampel at rac.de] 
Verzonden: vrijdag 12 augustus 2011 11:29
Aan: Erik van Ast
Onderwerp: AW: [PVE-User] Very slow server (RAW IDE discs and KVM)

Hi Erik,

Your DSK line looks bas as before. But with emulated drivers (disk, net) you will never get good performance. So I suggest, you switch to the virtio driver.

Information to the driver is maintained here:
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers/Download_Drivers  (see "Download Latest VirtIO Win drivers from Fedora")  

Then add a dummy disk type virtio, choose the downloaded iso as cdrom, start the VM, install the driver manually (and check the version - sometimes windows proposes the version for the wrong windows version). If you can use the additional disk - fine.

Shutdown the VM, drop both disk within proxmox GUI - you find them as "unused disks". Add disk-1 as virtio, start VM, install the driver for "the new hardware" (select from windows path). Shutdown - start. You can delete the second unused disk.

Regards
Holger

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