FreeNAS 11.2 Win 10 VM slow performance and near 100% CPU usage

Frikkn

Cadet
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Messages
6
Hmm, maybe this is related to the disk device type. My Linux VM has a VirtIO Disk and it runs quite good. The Windows VM has a AHCI disk, maybe that is the cause?
That is most likely it. I have tried to install windows 10 multiple times with the virtio disk driver but when selecting it on setup the VM crashes every time.
 

trey504

Cadet
Joined
Dec 31, 2017
Messages
3
I started using Timer Tool and it solves the lag issues when working in the VM. I'm pretty sure I read about it on these forums. It will cause the VM to use more power but to me its unusable without it.
https://vvvv.org/contribution/windows-system-timer-tool
My Win10 VM is configured with 8GB of ram with 1 CPU (4 cores). I have not tired many CPU configurations as it requires a freenas reboot.
 

Supergrobi

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 24, 2019
Messages
25
I started using Timer Tool and it solves the lag issues when working in the VM. I'm pretty sure I read about it on these forums. It will cause the VM to use more power but to me its unusable without it.
https://vvvv.org/contribution/windows-system-timer-tool
My Win10 VM is configured with 8GB of ram with 1 CPU (4 cores). I have not tired many CPU configurations as it requires a freenas reboot.
I have already tried this tool but I have not noticed any effect on the performance on my VM
 

parylizer

Cadet
Joined
Jan 8, 2020
Messages
4
Did you ever solve this issue? I have the same problem. Windows VM incredibly slow. CPU always sitting at 100% with an i7-2600k.
 

tholle

Cadet
Joined
Apr 14, 2019
Messages
5
Hi parylizer,

unfortunatly not, in my case. It seems, the high CPU-Usage is caused by intensive graphical usage. So the GPU passtrough is actually bad implemented in bhyve. In freeBSD12 the GPU-passtrough should be much better. But i haven't tested.
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
Has anyone got this sorted out? I am having one heck of a time trying to figure out why VM performance (particularly Windows) is so poor on FreeNAS-11.3-U3.2

Specs:
Dell R520 with 2x Xeon CPU E5-2420 1.90GHz
74GB of ECC DDR3
17TB of SAS storage
128GB SSD for VMs

I've searched the forums here but not a lot of them have solutions, and the ones that do I have implemented to no avail including:
  • VirtIO for VM drive instead of AHCI (virtio-win-0.1.185)
  • VirtIO for NIC instead of Intel (virtio-win-0.1.185)
  • Allocated more RAM and more CPU cores up to 16
  • Tried TimerToolV3 @ 0.5s and others
  • For the SSD drive I turned off S.M.A.R.T., tried switching compression off and on, sync, reduplication...
  • Tried running VM on sas drive pool
  • Removed VNC device and used RDP instead
  • Added Tuneables:
    • hw.vmm.topology.cores_per_package 6
      hw.vmm.topology.threads_per_core 2
Can't remember what else I tried, but nothing seems to be helping, all of my VMs are unusable, I've tried most recent windows 10 iso, and elementary OS, while elementary is slightly faster it is still far from being usable. CPU utilization on FreeNAS dashboard is below 18% during load, while in VM it is idling between 37% and 90% with 8 Virtual CPU cores and 8Gb of assigned RAM. When assigning max 16 virtual cores and 16Gb, VM cpu idle goes down to 20-60%; zvol is located on an SSD but it takes a long time to boot and response time is abysmal, takes around 11 seconds to open a task manager and 3s to close it, same with file manager. Task manager in VM sees all cores. I am stuck, any ideas?
 

bal0an

Explorer
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
72
I have the same issue with Windows 10 VMs. For reference here is my forum posts, trying to find a configuration solution, but unfortunately without success.
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
I have the same issue with Windows 10 VMs. For reference here is my forum posts, trying to find a configuration solution, but unfortunately without success.
Have you tried running TrueNas Beta yet? I tested it on a separate machine and VM performance is greatly improved, windows VMs were actually usable. But I still dont understand how some people report good windows VM performance on 11.3 on some cant even open up file explorer without waiting 10 seconds...
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,740
But I still dont understand how some people report good windows VM performance on 11.3 on some cant even open up file explorer without waiting 10 seconds...
Same here - never had a problem. Running Windows 7, then 10 since FreeNAS Corral. Completely puzzled by other peoples' reports.
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
Same here - never had a problem. Running Windows 7, then 10 since FreeNAS Corral. Completely puzzled by other peoples' reports.
What kind of hardware are you running?
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,740
What kind of hardware are you running?
See my signature - first the system now labelled "Backup NAS" and now the one labelled "Home NAS" because VMs got out of hand a bit and I wanted more "oomph".

VMs:
  • Windows 10, 2 cores, 8 G
  • Ubuntu with Confluence and MySQL, 2 cores, 8 G
  • Another Ubuntu, another Confluence and MySQL
  • Ubuntu with Truecommand, 1 core, 4 G
  • Ubuntu with OnlyOffice DocumentServer, 1 core, 4 G
Jails:
  • Gitea
  • Nextcloud
  • Apache Guacamole
  • Grafana
  • Monit
  • Apache/Dehydrated reverse proxy for all of the above
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
See my signature - first the system now labelled "Backup NAS" and now the one labelled "Home NAS" because VMs got out of hand a bit and I wanted more "oomph".

VMs:
  • Windows 10, 2 cores, 8 G
  • Ubuntu with Confluence and MySQL, 2 cores, 8 G
  • Another Ubuntu, another Confluence and MySQL
  • Ubuntu with Truecommand, 1 core, 4 G
  • Ubuntu with OnlyOffice DocumentServer, 1 core, 4 G
Jails:
  • Gitea
  • Nextcloud
  • Apache Guacamole
  • Grafana
  • Monit
  • Apache/Dehydrated reverse proxy for all of the above
How can I add one of these sigs to my profile?
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,740
Click on profile picture (upper right) --> Signature, then use e.g.
Code:
[ SPOILER="Production Hypervisor System"]
FreeNAS 11.3-U3.2
Supermicro 1113S-WN10RT
AMD EPYC 7401P - 24 cores
256 GB ECC memory
2x Toshiba SSD XG5 NVME 256G (boot pool - mirror)
6x Intel SSD DC P4510 NVME 1T (storage pool - 3 mirror pairs)
2 identical systems, replicating VMs to each other
[/SPOILER]


Remove the single " " right after the first "[" - the forum would render the spoiler the same way as in my signature, even within code tags.
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
Click on profile picture (upper right) --> Signature, then use e.g.
Code:
[ SPOILER="Production Hypervisor System"]
FreeNAS 11.3-U3.2
Supermicro 1113S-WN10RT
AMD EPYC 7401P - 24 cores
256 GB ECC memory
2x Toshiba SSD XG5 NVME 256G (boot pool - mirror)
6x Intel SSD DC P4510 NVME 1T (storage pool - 3 mirror pairs)
2 identical systems, replicating VMs to each other
[/SPOILER]


Remove the single " " right after the first "[" - the forum would render the spoiler the same way as in my signature, even within code tags.
Thank you!
 

jglathe

Cadet
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
6
Alright, some more data. I'm using freenas for 10 years (or so) now, however to my knowledge only on AMD CPUs. Managed to get bhyve up and running, had quite some issues (AHCI vs VirtIO drive issue the last one, all solved by end of last year). VM was not screaming fast but snappy enough to do everyday work if required. One strange thing with the on-board NIC (something with MSI-X interrupt routing...) worked around by putting an intel e1000 PCI card in. Now I wanted some more RAM, meaning a new old Mainboard with 32GB on it was in order.

Two choices:

1. ASUS PRIME B-350M, Ryzen 7-1700, 32GB DDR4, 6x SATA3
2. ASUS P8Z77M-Pro, i7-3770s 32GB DDR3, 4xSATA2, 2xSATA3, 2xeSATA

I go for the newer one, everything goes up, re-assign the NIC (the onboard one works, PCI doesn't fit on this board), fast and snappy VMs with more RAM if desired, more CPUs if desired, smiles all around. But... every morning the whole server is in some sleep mode and doesn't want to wake up. Checked all APM settings, googled, to no avail, except that there are some APM issues with B-350 chipset. Dead end for now.
Reassembled into the other case with the intel board, re-mounted all the six hard drives (sheesh), fired up, all came up instantly. Except... the VMs are slow as molasses now. I mean really slow, like described in this thread above. Tried to switch off the Meltdown/Spectre mitigations to eliminate degradations... no change that can be felt.

Current version is FreeNAS-11.3-U4.1. On AMD no issue with VM.

Conslusion for now: FreeNAS on intel is possible, but Win10 VMs are a waste here. Slooooowww. Now I need to go for another board.... For now, the one VM I need, is transplanted to a Hyper-V via viBoot. Almost as fast as the host machine now.
 
Last edited:

Yorick

Wizard
Joined
Nov 4, 2018
Messages
1,912
TrueNAS 12 Core w/ Win10 VM and both storage and Ethernet "virtio" is okay. Not the fastest, but much better than 11.3. I'd wait for RC1 before going there though. That "can't reboot a VM without bhyve taking a dump" bug in 12 should be fixed before you fiddle with it.
 

Yorick

Wizard
Joined
Nov 4, 2018
Messages
1,912
every morning the whole server is in some sleep mode and doesn't want to wake up

For 1st-gen Ryzen, it's generally true that in order to work well with FreeNAS, C-States should be off, Cool'N'Quiet should be off, and all overclocking options should be disabled. That might do it.
 
Last edited:

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,740
That "can't reboot a VM without bhyve taking a dump" bug in 12 should be fixed before you fiddle with it.
So that's what bit me yesterday :grin: Thanks!
 

jglathe

Cadet
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
6
That might do it.
Thanks. Not sure I want to try this now, the CPU would pull lots of juice the whole time. Runs now on intel without Win10 VM, the shares are needed.
 

Aurieg

Cadet
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
9
TrueNAS 12 Core w/ Win10 VM and both storage and Ethernet "virtio" is okay. Not the fastest, but much better than 11.3. I'd wait for RC1 before going there though. That "can't reboot a VM without bhyve taking a dump" bug in 12 should be fixed before you fiddle with it.
That's what I've discovered as well, TrueNas 12 windows vm performance was much better, it was usable, I wonder when stable version is out, will we be able to upgrade without redoing preexisting jails and VMs?
 
Top