Why does Windows slow down in VirtualBox?

Question

virtual box

I use Ubuntu as my main working operating system. Occasionally I need to run something and check under Windows, like opening a file in Microsoft Office or launching Internet Explorer. I used to run Windows XP in VirtualBox for this purpose. Everything was fine, everything flew. But now I need to run a more modern version of Windows, after all, it's almost 2019 in the yard. But Windows 8 and Windows 10 terribly slow down in VirtualBox and constantly thrash the HDD, so it becomes completely unbearable to work.
Computer specifications (new laptop):
- CPU - i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (6 cores, 12 threads)
- RAM - 8 GB
- SSD - as a system
- HDD - it contains images of virtual machines of machines (there is not enough on SSD places for images)
It seems to me that I have allocated enough resources for a virtual machine:
- 3-4 cores
- 3-4 GB of RAM
On other computers, the same problem.
How can I get Windows to work with normal performance in a virtual machine? Maybe something can be tweaked? What resources do you need to allocate Win10 for normal operation? Or will Win10 only run acceptably on an SSD?
I really don't want to go back to Windows XP.

Answer 1

But Windows 8 and Windows 10 terribly slow down in VirtualBox and constantly thrash the HDD, so it becomes completely unbearable to work.

Well, of course, who places the system disk on the HDD, there is an SSD for this.

It seems to me that I have allocated enough resources for the virtual machine:

Normal for what?
For comfortable office work, 8GB and an SSD are enough for the system.

Answer 2

It is not necessary to jump to 10 from XP. Jump to 7, it may well rustle at 3-4 GB.
8 and 10 want more. And yes, maybe your HDD is slow and the image is heavily defragmented?
I have virtual images on the SSD, and the virtual Windows is loaded in 6-8 seconds in a regular virtual box.

Answer 3

Maybe this will help.

Answer 4

If your antivirus has a chapter "Virtualization (for sandbox)" - disable it. Avast also crashed my system yesterday =)