So - the cloned fully pre-allocated storage into sparse VDI storage performed the same for logins and launching firefox were 12 and 8 seconds. This was with 3d accel enabled, so it is a tiny bit slower.
Without 3d accel enabled, logins and launching firefox were 13 and 10 seconds, again, a tiny bit slower.
So - sparse storage, using VDI vHDD files, seems worthwhile. I'm off to do a 14.04 install to new VDI storage.
Code:
-rw-rw-rw- 0 root root 4625268736 Apr 18 11:49 New-Sparse-vHDD.vdi
-rw-rw-rw- 0 root root 8592031744 Apr 18 11:45 New-vHDD.vdi
-rw-rw-rw- 0 root root 8592031744 Apr 18 10:29 Ubu1404-full.vdi
-rw-rw-rw- 0 root root 4728557568 Apr 18 10:16 Ubu1404.qcow
provides an idea of the file sizes.
Installed again, into a sparse VDI vHDD (no 3d accel)
* Install - 14 min
Installed guest additions, rebooted, then did the login/firefox launch
* login 11 sec
* firefox 10 sec
Enabled 3D accel and rebooted:
* login 9 sec
* firefox 7 sec
Tiny bit slower than fully-preallocated.
Bookmarks