Speed up your Virtualbox virtual machine

As someone who works with many virtual machines running at once I have on many occasions tried to tweak Virtualbox and virtual machine settings for faster performance. Ive tried different operating systems, many Virtualbox setting variations, and ive played with the virtual machine operating system configurations as well. Here is a list of the settings and strategies I know to have worked for me.

As far as the best performing operating system setups including variations of host OS and guest OS are as follows. This list gives respect to actually having a system that is "work ready". I mean if it takes you 3 days to set up a Puppy Linux virtual machine so you can test a network config it kind of kills the point, right?
  • Windows 10 as host:
    •  Fastest guest: base Ubuntu server. If your not comfortable with the command line then you can install LXDE after you install the virtual machine. I have run this setup on old PCs with less than 2GB DDR3 and still have it very responsive.
    •  Second fastest guest: Lubuntu. If you need a GUI but not a fancy one Lubuntu is hands down the best for running as guests. I have run multiple Lubuntu guests with 512MB ram each on a PC with 4GB DDR3, and run fast. Also a note, I have had many many VMs crash when I wasn't trying to crash them but Lubuntu has never let me down. I mean I have never lost any work or data with Lubuntu guest on a Win 10 Host.
    • Ubuntu: reliable and speed is ok compared to the above two options. It is a lot prettier tho.
    • Kali linux 64b LXDE. A bit slower than the above three but you have all the security and networking tools out of the box. Also setting up and getting guest additions working is not quite as straight forward.
    • Whonix gateway guest with Whonix workstation guest if you need to use Tor. The default settings run real fast and its easy to set up. Standard OVA setup, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, and your done.
    • If you need Windows as a guest and have no preference over version, Windows 10 64 bit runs faster than Windows 7 32 bit from my experience. Windows 7 is easier to get up and running and has less issues after its installed. 
  • Ubuntu as host:
    •  Ubuntu guest is more reliable than Lubuntu guest, speed seems the same.
    • Windows 7 always runs faster as a guest in Ubuntu host vs a Windows host from my experience.
    • If you need Tor, Tails works just as good as anything else in a Ubuntu host.
I have found that 64bit guests run faster than 32bit guests on 64bit host physical PCs especially when you run 32bit apps in that 64bit guest. Here are Virtualbox settings I found makes the most worth while speed difference.


Change the allocated RAM:




  
Add more processors and enable PAE:






Increase video memory:



Add an exclusion for windows security. Go to windows search and type "exclusions". Click on "Virus & Threat Protection:




Under Virus & Threat Protection Settings click "Manage Settings":




In the next window click "Add or Remove Exclusions":




Click "Add an Exclusion" and select the Virtualbox VM folder your VM is installed in:




And that is it. A few easy settings to speed up your virtual Machine. Thank your for reading! I hope this helped out!

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