vmrale,
I don't think I want to start introducing more disks and RAID into the equation as it really is not my goal at this point.
I just really want to understand why a physical PC with lower performance hardware can outperform (albeit a slow file append operation may not qualify as a complete performance failure) a VM Host with higher performance hardware, running one VM (configured as close as I know how to the physical PC):
- Windows 10 Pro v1703 (physical) versus Windows 10 Pro v1709 (VM)
- storage controller: SATA IDE (physical) versus SATA ACHI ( SCSI Controller in VM)
no RAID - Same physical Seagate SATA drive - Barracuda 7200.12, ST3100052A8
If you say that ESXi is showing that it is not introducing much latency, then what is causing the performance difference?
Did I miss something in the BIOS setting of the VM Host? Or did I incorrectly install/configure the VM Host or VM, or have I not customized the Windows 10 on the VM for better performance?
Will look into VM virtual adapter tweaking as you suggested - do you have a specific link in mind?
Will look into using Paravirtual SCSI adapters - VMware Knowledge Base nicely documents how to configure an existing Windows boot disk to use PVSCSI adapter.
Regards