How do I mount a file from an ext4 partition as writable partition on Windows?

[Magno]

I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.

What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.

The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.

Any ideas about this is appreciated.

(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

[David Brown]

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).

On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.

So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

[Magno]

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all my
documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative it
seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all my
documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative it
seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

[Magno]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don’t work
in the virtual machine...
What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows, with
access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over Samba?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don’t work
in the virtual machine...

ah...wasnt aware that was the issue.

Post by Magno
What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows, with
access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over Samba?

Hmm. That might work . I have no idea how, though.

[Bill Waddington]

On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:42:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to
waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don’t work
in the virtual machine...

ah...wasnt aware that was the issue.

What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows, with
access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over Samba?

Hmm. That might work . I have no idea how, though.

<heresy>
The free VMWare Player running on a WinXXX host w/a Linux VM client
will do that, or with VMWare tools installed in the client, copy/paste
and drag/drop between host and client will work. There are VM
solutions other than VMWare also.

I've got Win 7 native on my ThinkPad and Linux, Solaris, and other Win
clients running under VMWare Player.
</heresy>

Bill

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Bill Waddington
On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:42:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don’t work
in the virtual machine...

ah...wasnt aware that was the issue.

Post by Magno
What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows, with
access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over Samba?

Hmm. That might work . I have no idea how, though.

<heresy>
The free VMWare Player running on a WinXXX host w/a Linux VM client
will do that, or with VMWare tools installed in the client, copy/paste
and drag/drop between host and client will work. There are VM
solutions other than VMWare also.
I've got Win 7 native on my ThinkPad and Linux, Solaris, and other Win
clients running under VMWare Player.
</heresy>

virtual box will run under winXP. Not sure how well, but it will.

The linux VM would need only about 256M of ram, and samba to run. No
GUI, no anything: basic console only.

Post by Bill Waddington
Bill

[David Brown]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Bill Waddington
On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:42:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don’t
work in the virtual machine...

ah...wasnt aware that was the issue.

Post by Magno
What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows,
with access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over
Samba?

Hmm. That might work . I have no idea how, though.

<heresy>
The free VMWare Player running on a WinXXX host w/a Linux VM client
will do that, or with VMWare tools installed in the client, copy/paste
and drag/drop between host and client will work. There are VM
solutions other than VMWare also.
I've got Win 7 native on my ThinkPad and Linux, Solaris, and other Win
clients running under VMWare Player.
</heresy>

virtual box will run under winXP. Not sure how well, but it will.

VirtualBox runs perfectly well under XP, or later windows. It is much
freer than VMWare (in that most of it is open source, and even the
full-featured version is free for use, unlike VMWare), and I find it
easier and smoother. I use VirtualBox on both Linux and Windows hosts,
with both Linux and Windows clients.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
The linux VM would need only about 256M of ram, and samba to run. No
GUI, no anything: basic console only.

Agreed.

An alternative here instead of a full virtual Linux computer would be
<www.colinux.org>. I haven't used colinux for several years - it is
somewhat limited compared to VirtualBox when you need a full machine.
But for a situation like this, it would be ideal. In particular, it
will not reserve more memory than it is actually using (a virtual
machine with 256 MB ram will take 256 MB physical ram from the host).
Colinux is a "lighter" solution because it uses a modified kernel and
runs as a windows service rather than virtualising the hardware.

[unruh]

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]

Post by David Brown

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Bill Waddington
On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:42:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don???t want
to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don???t post this in Windows groups for I think they won???t have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There are
programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from windows, but I
don't know if they will work with ext4 and I think they may be
commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32 and NTFS
partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS, but modern distros
should be happy with read-write access. FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or NTFS
partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all
my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative
it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by a different
means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to boot windows in and access
the still running Linux area via a windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just don???t
work in the virtual machine...

ah...wasnt aware that was the issue.

What about doing the opposite? Running a Virtual Linux on Windows,
with access to the physical disk, and sharing them to Windows over
Samba?

Hmm. That might work . I have no idea how, though.

<heresy>
The free VMWare Player running on a WinXXX host w/a Linux VM client
will do that, or with VMWare tools installed in the client, copy/paste
and drag/drop between host and client will work. There are VM
solutions other than VMWare also.
I've got Win 7 native on my ThinkPad and Linux, Solaris, and other Win
clients running under VMWare Player.
</heresy>

virtual box will run under winXP. Not sure how well, but it will.

VirtualBox runs perfectly well under XP, or later windows. It is much
freer than VMWare (in that most of it is open source, and even the
full-featured version is free for use, unlike VMWare), and I find it
easier and smoother. I use VirtualBox on both Linux and Windows hosts,
with both Linux and Windows clients.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
The linux VM would need only about 256M of ram, and samba to run. No
GUI, no anything: basic console only.

Agreed.
An alternative here instead of a full virtual Linux computer would be
<www.colinux.org>. I haven't used colinux for several years - it is
somewhat limited compared to VirtualBox when you need a full machine.
But for a situation like this, it would be ideal. In particular, it
will not reserve more memory than it is actually using (a virtual
machine with 256 MB ram will take 256 MB physical ram from the host).
Colinux is a "lighter" solution because it uses a modified kernel and
runs as a windows service rather than virtualising the hardware.

The OP wants to run games. Any VM sticks a whole extra layer between the
programs and the disk/memory/... That slows things down. If he wants to
run games, I suspect, but do not know, that any VM solution would not be
optimal.

[Sidney Lambe]

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able
to play... everything else I have, documents and others,
will be in other partition formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition
files (or whichever they should be called) on the ext4
partition, to be mounted in Windows as normal windows
partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t
want to waste more space in separate Windows partitions
which I am going to use only to play. But their size may
vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they
won’t have too much idea about complicated things like
this)

Windows doesn't work well with non-windows partitions. There
are programs that will read and write an ext2 partition from
windows, but I don't know if they will work with ext4 and I
think they may be commercial programs (i.e., you'll have to
pay for them).
On the other hand, Linux has no problem working with FAT32
and NTFS partitions. There are a few limitations with NTFS,
but modern distros should be happy with read-write access.
FAT32 is fully supported.
So aim to have all your windows-accessible files on FAT32 or
NTFS partitions.

That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to
have all my documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there
is no alternative it seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

the only way to operationally achivee what you want, is by
a different means entirely: I.e. use a virtual machine to
boot windows in and access the still running Linux area via a
windows share.

That would kill my gaming experience... the games I want just
don’t work in the virtual machine... What about doing the
opposite?
Running a Virtual Linux on Windows, with access to the physical
disk, and sharing them to Windows over Samba?

That would be easy enough. Just run Linux from a live CD on
the box with Windows on the hdd.

Puppy Linux is a unique Linux distro created to run from a
live CD. It creates and uses a file that is stored on a
medium like the hdd or a CF or a USB stick, and so on.
Even a floppy, or CD (if you have enough RAM, and the figure
is surprisingly low, or a second CD/DVD).

So changes you make during the course of a session, including
installed packages, are saved to this remote file at shutdown.
And reassimilated the next time you boot up Linux on that
box.

The file would be created on the Windows' C drive (by default)
and would be seen as just an ordinary file by Windows. It would
be ignored.

Linux has few problems reading NTFS and FAT file systems. Just
make sure the kernel modules for these file systems exist or the
capability built into the kernel at compilation.

Mount the hdd from Puppy and you're there.

puppylinux.com

HTH

Sid

[Rahul]

Post by Magno
That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all my
documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative it
seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

How about using LVM? Would that help? That way your Win partition can be
one of the Win-preferred formats. But the Linux stuff stays on ext4 that
you want for speed etc? And no wastage of space when the gaming size
changes coz' you could expand and shrink LVMs?

Never did this before though. Maybe I mis-understand your goal but just
throwing it out there.

[Magno]

Post by Rahul

Post by Magno
That would kill my goal of having a single ext4 partition to have all my
documents and avoid fragmentation... but if there is no alternative it
seems I am going to have to do this.
Thanks for your reply.

How about using LVM? Would that help? That way your Win partition can be
one of the Win-preferred formats. But the Linux stuff stays on ext4 that
you want for speed etc? And no wastage of space when the gaming size
changes coz' you could expand and shrink LVMs?
Never did this before though. Maybe I mis-understand your goal but just
throwing it out there.

Anyway I have no idea what LVMs are and how they work... I would have to
read a bit to know if your contribution is actually right. Anyway thanks
for dropping this idea.

[Magno]

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.

What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.

Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

Fun to try, anyway.

FWIW debian lenny stable is more than good enough for this. Install the
bare minimum. Base OS plus samba only. You MIGHT get away with as little
as 256M RAM allocated as well. I've for sure run more on 512,...

[Magno]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Fun to try, anyway.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yea.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FWIW debian lenny stable is more than good enough for this. Install the
bare minimum. Base OS plus samba only. You MIGHT get away with as little
as 256M RAM allocated as well. I've for sure run more on 512,...

What about ArchLinux? I have experience with it since it is the only
distro I use.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?

That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?

Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk

says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.

Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Fun to try, anyway.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yea.

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FWIW debian lenny stable is more than good enough for this. Install the
bare minimum. Base OS plus samba only. You MIGHT get away with as little
as 256M RAM allocated as well. I've for sure run more on 512,...

What about ArchLinux? I have experience with it since it is the only
distro I use.

Dunno. S/archlinux/debian and that's MY response to YOU.

Its pretty basic stuff though. As long as you can easily install a bare
bones OS - needs nothing beyond networking and disk access and samba -
any distro should be fine. And the virtualised hardware is going to be
so standard its not true.

As I say, the one worry is whether the Vbox goes in at low enough level
to present the whole raw partition to Linux (great!), or whether it
relies on windows as the host to access it as a suite of files (total
bummer).

[Magno]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through samba,
and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I think.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way? Linux can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through samba,
and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I think.

Not if linux/samba cant READ the disks in the first place. Which it may
NOT be able to do as a VM under XP..

[Bill Waddington]

On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:34:37 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
[a bunch of stuff about how to share files/folders between
ext4 Linux and Windows - multi boot or host/VM client]

Sorry to keep beating the VMWare drum, but it's the only one I
have any experience with. I thought I remembered something
about shared folders in VMWare, so I fired up a Ubuntu 10.04 VM
on my Win 7 box. Sure enough there's a shared folder option for
the VM client.

I just specified a path to a directory/folder in the Win 7 file
system, and hey presto it shows up mounted as /mnt/hgfs/<something>
in the Ubuntu VM. Files created/edited in one OS show up immediately
in the other OS.

No need for (visible/manual) SAMBA or anything else.

Maybe it's worth considering, or looking for the same option in
your VM of choice.

Bill

[David Brown]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to
waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t
have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way?
Linux
can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through
samba, and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I
think.

Not if linux/samba cant READ the disks in the first place. Which it may
NOT be able to do as a VM under XP..

Windows can see partitions that don't contain NTFS or FAT file systems.
It just can't mount them as drives. (If it couldn't do that, how
would it be able to format them?) So there is no problem making the
Linux partitions accessible from within VirtualBox (or colinux, as I
suggested in another post). The Linux virtual machine can read and
write the disks, and export the file system with samba.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by David Brown

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to
waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install heavy games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t
have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way?
Linux
can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through
samba, and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I
think.

Not if linux/samba cant READ the disks in the first place. Which it may
NOT be able to do as a VM under XP..

Windows can see partitions that don't contain NTFS or FAT file systems.
It just can't mount them as drives. (If it couldn't do that, how would
it be able to format them?) So there is no problem making the Linux
partitions accessible from within VirtualBox (or colinux, as I suggested
in another post). The Linux virtual machine can read and write the
disks, and export the file system with samba.

Soory to bang the drum, but thats critically dependent on whether the
virtualisation software is accessing the partiton as a raw device, or
whether its mappoing a files system that windows can read, to the
vuirtual machine. One HOPES its the former.

[David Brown]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by David Brown

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t want to
waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to use only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install
heavy
games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t
have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably
WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way?
Linux
can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through
samba, and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I
think.

Not if linux/samba cant READ the disks in the first place. Which it may
NOT be able to do as a VM under XP..

Windows can see partitions that don't contain NTFS or FAT file
systems. It just can't mount them as drives. (If it couldn't do that,
how would it be able to format them?) So there is no problem making
the Linux partitions accessible from within VirtualBox (or colinux, as
I suggested in another post). The Linux virtual machine can read and
write the disks, and export the file system with samba.

Soory to bang the drum, but thats critically dependent on whether the
virtualisation software is accessing the partiton as a raw device, or
whether its mappoing a files system that windows can read, to the
vuirtual machine. One HOPES its the former.

It's the former - the Virtual Box client can access the partition as a
raw device (the same goes for colinux clients).

That's the point of raw disk access - it would not make sense otherwise,
and it would be meaningless for the Virtual Box documentation to mention
it, and meaningless for people to describe it in this thread.

[Magno]

Post by David Brown

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by David Brown

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Magno

Post by Magno
I am going to make a 50gb partition for Windows, to be able to play...
everything else I have, documents and others, will be in other
partition
formatted as ext4.
What I want to accomplish... is to make virtual partition files (or
whichever they should be called) on the ext4 partition, to be
mounted in
Windows as normal windows partitions.
The reason why I want to do this... it is because I don’t
want to
waste
more space in separate Windows partitions which I am going to
use
only
to play. But their size may vary since I am going to install
heavy
games.
Any ideas about this is appreciated.
(I don’t post this in Windows groups for I think they won’t
have
too
much idea about complicated things like this)

There are curretnly no drivers (that I know of) that can reliably
WRITE to an
ext4 partition. You can read however. Why not go the other way?
Linux
can
read from and write to any of the currently available windows partition
types.

The reason why I want to avoid these partition formats if because of
their fragmentation and perhaps slower functioning that ext4.
Anyway in c.o.l.m and c.o.l.q (yes, I crossposted there before I did
this post, idiotly, for I didn’t see this group before), because of a
post by The Natural Philosopher, I came up with a good idea. It is
running a Virtual Linux Distro in Windows, which would have access to
the physical HDD and let me share the ext4 files to the Windows host
over Samba.
What do you think? I am going to have some fun trying to make it work.

well it will only be as stable as windows is,. but its pretty
undemanding. If it runs, it will do the job.
Try virtual box - I found it more stable and simpler than VMware.

The only virtualization software I ever use is VirtualBox. :P

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Whether or not it will 'see' the ext4 stuff I dunno. You would have to
mount that ..as a separate filesystem.

I think I will mount them as network shares like I do with VirtualBox.

how? If windows itself cant see them?
That's my big worry. If windows cant access the area in question, how
will the virtualisation access them?
Only by going down to a raw disk access of some sort, ad I dunno if
that's possible.
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
says you can do it, but its unclear as to whether the host system needs
to understand the partition you are trying to map.
Certainly windows needs to see it as a logical volume. But I don't know
whether Windows needs to be able to understand its format.

What I will do will be to share the relevant mount points through
samba, and mount them as network shares on Windows. that will do it I
think.

Not if linux/samba cant READ the disks in the first place. Which it may
NOT be able to do as a VM under XP..

Windows can see partitions that don't contain NTFS or FAT file
systems. It just can't mount them as drives. (If it couldn't do that,
how would it be able to format them?) So there is no problem making
the Linux partitions accessible from within VirtualBox (or colinux, as
I suggested in another post). The Linux virtual machine can read and
write the disks, and export the file system with samba.

Soory to bang the drum, but thats critically dependent on whether the
virtualisation software is accessing the partiton as a raw device, or
whether its mappoing a files system that windows can read, to the
vuirtual machine. One HOPES its the former.

It's the former - the Virtual Box client can access the partition as a
raw device (the same goes for colinux clients).
That's the point of raw disk access - it would not make sense otherwise,
and it would be meaningless for the Virtual Box documentation to mention
it, and meaningless for people to describe it in this thread.

Thanks for everyone that answered to the topic... My older brother
already told me about colinux, and told me it is the best solution for
me in a situation like that...
Also he told me that I should instead use ext3 partitions and read them
on windows with an ext3 driver he has been using for years without any
issues.

And... I also thought that it could actually be slower to access drives
through samba to a virtual machine. I would have to try this to see it
actually is.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Soory to bang the drum, but thats critically dependent on whether the
virtualisation software is accessing the partiton as a raw device, or
whether its mappoing a files system that windows can read, to the
virtual machine. One HOPES its the former.

There's [at least] three possibilities, in order of (presumably)
ascending performance...
- indirect via the host and use a file as backing store
- indirect via the host and use a partition (or the whole disk) directly
- communicate directly with the physical device

My (somewhat limited) experience is that the thing that really kills
disk performance is not virtualization as such, even with the emulated
disks being big files, but more than one system doing lots of IO
simulataneously; presumably the physical disk spends all its time
seeking. I imagine the usual ways of improving achieving high IO
performance in the face of multiple independent clients would apply.

I asked my friendly local VM developer about third possibility above.
The mechanism is PCI passthrough and apparently it's mainly used for
NICs and video cards. You need an IOMMU and you need to reserve the
whole device to the VM. In principle you don't need the guest to be
aware of it (i.e. to have a suitable paravirtual driver) but in practice
if it isn't then you have more emulation to do and this is a performance
hit. It's possible for interrupts to be dispatched directly to the VM
but not everyone (or possibly, nobody) takes advantage of this yet.
Presumably there is some arrangement for this to still work when the VM
isn't scheduled but we didn't get into that.

Any errors above are mine, not my source's l-)

[David Brown]

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Soory to bang the drum, but thats critically dependent on whether the
virtualisation software is accessing the partiton as a raw device, or
whether its mappoing a files system that windows can read, to the
virtual machine. One HOPES its the former.

There's [at least] three possibilities, in order of (presumably)
ascending performance...
- indirect via the host and use a file as backing store
- indirect via the host and use a partition (or the whole disk) directly
- communicate directly with the physical device
My (somewhat limited) experience is that the thing that really kills
disk performance is not virtualization as such, even with the emulated
disks being big files, but more than one system doing lots of IO
simulataneously; presumably the physical disk spends all its time
seeking. I imagine the usual ways of improving achieving high IO
performance in the face of multiple independent clients would apply.

Correct - but the usual way to improve IO here is to use Linux rather
than Windows as the host, since it has better handling of multiple
clients. It also helps to use a host file system that works well with
big files (such as the virtual hard disk files) and multiple clients - I
expect XFS would be a good choice. Of course, that won't help the OP
running a windows host.

One thing that does help, however, is to use non-cached host access to
the disk file. VirtualBox will do this if you want - it's the default
for SATA disks and Linux guests (Linux guests should normally use
emulated SATA because it's more efficient than emulated IDE).

Post by Richard Kettlewell
I asked my friendly local VM developer about third possibility above.
The mechanism is PCI passthrough and apparently it's mainly used for
NICs and video cards. You need an IOMMU and you need to reserve the
whole device to the VM. In principle you don't need the guest to be
aware of it (i.e. to have a suitable paravirtual driver) but in practice
if it isn't then you have more emulation to do and this is a performance
hit. It's possible for interrupts to be dispatched directly to the VM
but not everyone (or possibly, nobody) takes advantage of this yet.
Presumably there is some arrangement for this to still work when the VM
isn't scheduled but we didn't get into that.
d
Any errors above are mine, not my source's l-)