Transfer of large files from virtualbox guest to linux via shared folders or samba become increasingly slow and then freeze the system

[Timm]

Transferring large files (in this particular example a 5GB iso image) from a virtual box guest (xp with guest additions) to an ubuntu host file system (tested with ext3 and ntfs) via either virtualbox shared drives (mounted on xp via 'net use') or samba show the following symptoms:

* The transfer starts with a reasonable rate: ~30.000kb/sec (for shared drives, lower for samba)
* After about 500MB the transfer rate starts to drop significantly and system load increases
* Transfer rates finally drop into the 1000kb/sec range
* The entire system becomes unrepsonsive (both guest and host). Not even the mouse pointer reacts to mouse movement any more.
* After about 30 minutes the copy has finished and the system becomes responsive again

The problem can be avoided in the following way:
Use a way to copy that allows to pause the copy (for example total commander under xp), pause it at certain intervals (i.e. every 50MB). Let it rest a few seconds and start it for another 50MB. Transfer rates are better using this method and the system stays responsive

This problem may be a virtualbox bug but:

* Very similar problems happen on my system (without virtualbox running) when I copy a large file to an external usb drive. This bug is described by someone else in Bug #197762.
* The similarity of the symptoms to this other bug and the unresponsiveness not just of the virtualbox guest but also the host could suggest that there is an underlying kernel problem which causes both problems

$ uname -a
Linux sol 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 04:38:19 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10

virtualbox3.1.6

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hello
Is this problem present with the latest updated Karmic's, Lucid's or Maverick's packages?
Thanks in advance
Fabio

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!