Extremely slow performance on ISO first boot

Hi all.

I am trying to install Ubuntu Server in the native TrueNAS VM manager:

1 CPU (host CPU is a 12600K)
2 cores
2 threads per core
100GB disk (on a SATA SSD)
8 GB RAM
Have tried both Host Model and Host Passthrough (honestly not sure when you’d use either, but have tried both)
Virtio
Ensure Display Device enabled

Trying to install Ubuntu Server 24.04.2 from iso that is in a different dataset on the same SSD (I have a “vms” dataset, with both “iso” and “ubuntu” datasets within it for images and the actual VM we are talking about respectively).

I can sit there in Spice for 30 minutes and still not have booted to the actual installation screen (I select “Try or Install Ubuntu Server” from the boot loader). Is this normal? Some steps seem to take an actual age. For example, I’ve been looking at a flashing cursor below “[ OK ] Finished systemd-update-done.service - Update is Completed.” for like 5 minutes now.

Am I missing something? Is this normal?

What model SSD? Some are very slow at random access. I still wouldn’t expect 30m at boot, but who knows…

Which steps take a while? Need to know what lines are printed before and after the long delays.