I found VMWare Server to have very slow I/O, and sought to improve it. Below are a list of tests I performed, the change, and the results. ### Host OS ### /dev/sdb1: Timing buffered disk reads: 220 MB in 3.05 seconds = 72.17 MB/sec kelvin@gorilla:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb1: Timing buffered disk reads: 266 MB in 3.01 seconds = 88.33 MB/sec kelvin@gorilla:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb1: Timing buffered disk reads: 310 MB in 3.01 seconds = 102.99 MB/sec ### Before Changes ### /dev/mapper/openfiler-data: Timing buffered disk reads: 8 MB in 3.36 seconds = 2.38 MB/sec [root@files etc]# hdparm -t /dev/mapper/openfiler-data /dev/mapper/openfiler-data: Timing buffered disk reads: 24 MB in 3.63 seconds …