coffee
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Background: I have been running VB 4.3 for some time on my Linux Mint 17.2,AMD 6core, 8 gigs ram and RAID1. What prompted me to upgrade was the benefits of USB3 support and better performance.
I recently added a USB3 controller to my system and 2 NexStar external hot swap boxes. I wanted to take advantage of scanning drives from my VM of windows 7 pro. However, The drives could not be discovered by windows. The problem is VB4.x does not support USB3. However, VB5 does support it. Therefore I needed to upgrade. The basic upgrade path is to uninstall our old version and install the new. Before doing this always backup your "VirtualBox VMs" directory in case things go wrong. My directory consists of only the windows 7 install and was 107 gigs in size. The backup using my new external hot swap box took about 10 minutes at a speed of 132MB. Not too shabby. (The only drawback to USB3 is that it does not support smart testing).
After backing up my VM directory I uninstalled my current version of VB and just rebooted to make sure none of the old kernel compiled drivers where running. From there, I downloaded the VB5 from Oracle and ran the install. The install didnt take very long and after the install I rebooted just to make sure the kernel driver(s) loaded correctly. From there I started VB5 and it immediately asked to install the new extension pack. What I really liked is that my VMs where preserved and automatically added into the new install. I really didnt have to do any tweaking at all. This made everything a lot easier and before I new it I had my windows VM up and running again.
What you will notice right off the bat is that there is a lot less disk activity when loading the guest operating system. I did have to shut down my windows VM and go into settings and activate the USB3 option in the VM settings. However, Restarting the VM was pretty darn quick.
After restarting VB it informed me that a new version of guest additions was available. This was quickly installed with no hassle from clicking on the devices option at the top of the screen and choosing install guest additions. Then rebooting windows.
If your running an older version I would recommend the upgrade as your going to see new features and a vast improvement in performance.
Currently, VB5 is not available in the repos. Only the older 4.x version is.
I recently added a USB3 controller to my system and 2 NexStar external hot swap boxes. I wanted to take advantage of scanning drives from my VM of windows 7 pro. However, The drives could not be discovered by windows. The problem is VB4.x does not support USB3. However, VB5 does support it. Therefore I needed to upgrade. The basic upgrade path is to uninstall our old version and install the new. Before doing this always backup your "VirtualBox VMs" directory in case things go wrong. My directory consists of only the windows 7 install and was 107 gigs in size. The backup using my new external hot swap box took about 10 minutes at a speed of 132MB. Not too shabby. (The only drawback to USB3 is that it does not support smart testing).
After backing up my VM directory I uninstalled my current version of VB and just rebooted to make sure none of the old kernel compiled drivers where running. From there, I downloaded the VB5 from Oracle and ran the install. The install didnt take very long and after the install I rebooted just to make sure the kernel driver(s) loaded correctly. From there I started VB5 and it immediately asked to install the new extension pack. What I really liked is that my VMs where preserved and automatically added into the new install. I really didnt have to do any tweaking at all. This made everything a lot easier and before I new it I had my windows VM up and running again.
What you will notice right off the bat is that there is a lot less disk activity when loading the guest operating system. I did have to shut down my windows VM and go into settings and activate the USB3 option in the VM settings. However, Restarting the VM was pretty darn quick.
After restarting VB it informed me that a new version of guest additions was available. This was quickly installed with no hassle from clicking on the devices option at the top of the screen and choosing install guest additions. Then rebooting windows.
If your running an older version I would recommend the upgrade as your going to see new features and a vast improvement in performance.
Currently, VB5 is not available in the repos. Only the older 4.x version is.
