[dba-VB] [SPAM] Create and Use a Virtual Hard Disk on Windows 7 and Windows 8

Arthur Fuller fuller.artful at gmail.com
Mon Dec 3 16:21:41 CST 2012


Ok, I stand corrected. Maybe I just don't have the Big Box with a ton of
RAM; that's not a maybe, that's a fact. All I can claim in my defense is
that I run Ubuntu, Mint, and Win7 on separate boxes, and there is no
comparison on performance. They are all operating simultaneously. The Linux
boxes were seriously cheap; the Win7 box was a tad more expensive but still
not unreasonable. Recently I decided that I also need a WinXP box, and
purchased one with 2GB RAM for less than $100. Yes, it only had a 100MB
hard disk, but who cares? That's way more space than installation of
everything dating to that era demands.

However, lest you think that I am a 100% happy camper, this is not so. I
still want a CP/M box and a pure DOS box too. And I don't want VMs, I want
the real thing -- totally dedicated to exactly one purpose/OS.

A.


On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru>wrote:

> Hi Arthur --
>
> I have a Win8 Prof notebook with 12GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and 1TB HDD.
> That's quite a lot.
> And so I wanted to use/share them to be used for different OSes, tasks,
> customers, relatives, VMs, security contexts...
> I can split SSD and HDD on logical disks as I have been doing in the past
> but handling logical disks would be a PITA.
> So virtual HDDs seems to be "what doctor ordered"...
>
> Did I educate you? If not - please educate me :)
>
> Thank you.
>
> -- Shamil
>
>
>
> Понедельник,  3 декабря 2012, 15:08  от Arthur Fuller <
> fuller.artful at gmail.com>:
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >Ok, maybe I am getting something absolutely wrong here, but I fail to
> comprehend the VM thing. It seems to me that given the plummeting price of
> hardware, VMs have no reason to exist. For example, all you need for a
> bitchin' Linux box or XP box or Windows 7 box is about $500 or less. Said
> box would run way faster than any VM, and if you have a KVM then you have
> about 4 or 5 boxes all running at once, and push a button to switch from
> this one to that one. Granted, there is also the consumption-of-electricity
> issue to to factor into this, but even granting that, I still don't get it.
> So let us suppose that I want two Linux boxes, onw XP box, one Windows 7
> box, a dedicated server, and although I don't yet have the money, a Windows
> 8 box. The XP and Linux boxes think 2GB is wealth. The Win7 and Win8 prefer
> a tad more, and the server more than a tad more. But my point is, why not
> just buy a separate box for each task? We're not talking about huge amounts
> of loot here. And the gain is that everything runs as quickly as it can!
> >
>
> >
> >So maybe I'm missing something important here; in which case, please
> educate me.
> >
> >
> >A.
> >
> >
> >
> >On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 5:17 AM, Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru>
> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi Stuart and John --
> >>
>
> >>
> Thank you for your comments.
> >>
>
> >>
> Yes, I do remember MS DOS Stacker etc. but I have never used virtual hard
> disks in MS Windows: I have asked about performance hit because I have
> found that when setting a "map network drive" share from VM to a host PC
> virtual harddisk it takes some time even to create and save via notepad.exe
> a small text file. During that time notepad.exe becomes "frozen". When you
> restart VM with "map network drive" share automatically remapped then such
> a "performance hit side effect" disappears...
> >>
>
> >>
> Anyway I'm going to try using virtual hard disks to keep the source files
> and test databases for my customers projects...
> >>
>
> >>
> Thank you.
> >>
>
> >>
> -- Shamil
> >>
>
> >>
> Mon  3 Dec 2012 13:36:06 от "Stuart McLachlan" <stuart at lexacorp.com.pg>:
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >>
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> >>
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> >I did some testing a while ago with Access  and VirtualBox.
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> There was no appreciable difference when writing  and reading large test
> datasets between
> >>
> >
> >>
> Access running directly in Win 7 and  running in a VirtualBox installation
> with a virtual HD.
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> Certainly nothing a user would notice.
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> Except in one instance where I created a new virtual machine and told it
> to create a
> >>
> >
> >>
> "dyanically allocated" disk rather "fixed size" - that really slowed down
> the initial writes :-)
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> --
> >>
> >
> >>
> Stuart
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> On 2 Dec 2012 at 20:28, jwcolby wrote:
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> > Is the average Windows 7 desktop user going to notice the overhead of
> reading and writing to a
> >>
> >
> >>
> > virtual disk?
> >>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
> > John W. Colby
> >>
> >
> >>
> > Colby Consulting
> >>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> >
> >>
> _______________________________________________
> >>
> >
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >>
> >http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >>
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> >>
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> >>
> >
> >>
>
> >>
> _______________________________________________
> >>
> dba-VB mailing list
> >>
> >>dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com
> >>
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> >>
> >>http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >
> >Arthur
> >Cell: 647.710.1314
> >
> >
> >Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
> >  -- Niels Bohr
>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>


-- 
Arthur
Cell: 647.710.1314

Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
  -- Niels Bohr


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