I am running a TrueNAS Scale server with the specs:
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1620 v2 @ 3.70GHz (4 cores, 8 threads)
RAM: 64GB ECC DDR3
VM pool: 6 (3 mirrors) 2.5 SSD drives, Samsung 250gb
Storage pool: 1 vdev, 6x 4TB WD RED drives.
OS: Truenas Scale ElectricEel-24.10.2
NIC: onboard 1gb intel nic.
I have been running a couple of Ubuntu VMs for a long time, and it´s been very hassle free. Now, for the sake of learning, I have started setting up Windows VMs aswell. There are currently four of them.
Domain controller 1 (dc1)
Domain controller 2 (dc2)
Issuing CA server (ica01)
Jump host (jump01)
There is also a Root CA server, but that´s turned off, so probably not a part of this problem.
The thing is that the interface of the VMs are kind of sluggish, and the CPU usage seems very high.
In the Device specs on the Windows Vms, they have this for a CPU:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1620 v2 @ 3.70GHz 3.69 GHz
With all servers 4 running for over 48 hours, and no RDP sessions open, the CPU on the TrueNAS dashbboard shows a usage of 22 - 30%.
Memory on the dashboard says: Free 2.8GB, Cache 30.3GB, Services 29.7GB
If I then start an RDP session to jump01, it goues up to 80%. For a short while, and then it camls down to about 30%
When I start chrome on jump01, CPU jumps to 99%, both looking in Task manager on the VM, and on the TrueNAS dashboard.
My first guess was that the CPU had to deal with all of the graphics for the windows desktop. So I installed a second GPU (AMD FirePro W2100). Nothing fancy, just what I had lying around. It is isolated and used only with jump01. The desktop feels a little smoother after that. But the CPU usage remains at the same levels.
After I shut all my Windws VMs down, just for comparison, the CPU usage drops to 2 - 7 %.
I am wondering about the best CPU settings for my CPU. I have been trying a lot of different settings, selecting and deselecting things like “Ensure Display Device”. No I have all the VMs configured the same, regarding CPU:
cpu: 1
cores: 2
threads: 2
ram: 4gb
With the exception of jump01, which has 8gb of RAM.
Also, the VMs seem slow in networking. Doing an online speedtest from jump01, I get about 20mbit download, and 120 mbit upload. This also ramps up the CPU usage to 100%.
Doing the same test from my laptop on the same network, I get about 300mbit in both directions. The NIC in each VM says it is 10 Gbps. My physical NIC is 1Gbps. Is that normal?
I am using VirtIO for both networking and disks on all of the VMs.
What haven´t I thought of? Or is my hardware simply not good enough?