Wsl2 file system performance. Sep 20, 2020 · WSL2 and File System Performance.
Wsl2 file system performance For the fastest performance speed, store your files in the WSL file system if you are working in a Linux command line (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc). Moving files to Linux solved the problem like a charm. https://strace. File system architecture: The Linux file system in WSL2 is designed for high performance in a multi-tasking, multi Jun 4, 2023 · Step 1 git clone/make new project inside WSL2: Open up File Explorer and in bottom left you will Linux. Nov 24, 2023 · Welcome to a quick guide on optimizing your Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) experience by customizing its memory and CPU usage. To make matter worse, to ensure the same behavior as WSL1, we don't use any caching. Jul 1, 2020 · Unfortunately, it seems the improved filesystem performance only really applies to files that are stored within the Linux filesystem itself, as the Windows filesystem is still mounted as a remote Dec 2, 2020 · WSL2 の /mnt 以下で作業をすると非常に遅い. File system. Prior WSl2 benchmarking with other CPUs has generally shown the processor overhead to be minimal compared to Linux bare metal performance but with I/O (disk) performance being one of the areas where there can be some slowdowns with this Microsoft Linux environment. Windows itself is virtualized when WSL2 is turned on, and both Linux and Windows run under Hyper-V. If you're working in a Windows command line (PowerShell, Command Prompt), store your files in the Windows file system. – Dec 6, 2019 · Background I recently joined the Windows Insider Program, on the slow ring, to be able to test a development version of the soon-to-be-released Windows Subsystem for Linux, version 2, henceforth WSL 2. Feb 25, 2021 · WSL2 or Hyper-V backend? WSL2 backend (no problems with the Hyper-V backend) Are you running inside a virtualized Windows e. Access Linux filesystem via explorer with a path like below. Sep 6, 2020 · Later, we also looked into converting a WSL1 Linux distribution to WSL2-compatible distro and then benchmarked the file system and network performance improvements in WSL2. Jan 7, 2017 · You can easily access, read and write files from WSL Linux file system to Windows and vice-versa by simply navigating to the file location : C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited. Utilize WSL File System Effectively. 1. Nov 20, 2024 · To enhance WSL2 performance, especially if you plan to use it for development: Create a . Remember, file performance across systems is another aspect where WSL and WSL2 differ. This is a large reason why operations like building a virtual environment in Python or installing a package take noticeably longer in Windows. The process involves plenty file test commands (querying the file system attributes) and generates a lot of temporary and output files (heavy IO of tiny files). This significantly speeds up file I/O operations, reducing sluggishness in WordPress and other web applications running in containers. r. t. com Oct 14, 2020 · As stated in https://docs. Expand the menu. Sep 26, 2024 · WSL2; Kernel: Emulates the kernel, leading to compatibility limitations. Whether you’re working with large projects or running multiple distributions, understanding how to optimize your WSL2 file system is crucial for maintaining peak performance. The recommended swappiness value when using zswap in WSL2 is 133. I am guessing you are correct and the makefiles are doing more work than neccessary. It’s clear that if you will pay a more significant cost for accessing the file while you double click an item in your IDE or save it, it is a very acceptable solution. Uses a Linux kernel in a lightweight VM, enabling full compatibility with Linux tools. wslconfig in your user folder Jan 29, 2025 · Managing storage efficiently in WSL2 can significantly impact your development workflow. Visual Studio Code even displays a warning: "This workspace is on the Windows file system (/mnt/). Jul 9, 2020 · It turns out that WSL2 can be really fast but only if you use the Linux file system. Performance Improvements: WSL2 offers faster file system performance, significantly improving the speed of file operations. 3GB/s, and WSL2 Ubuntu24. Aug 29, 2021 · WSL2 uses the 9P protocol to access Windows drives, and it is currently (See Footnote) known to be very slow when compared to: Native NTFS (obviously) The ext4 filesystem on the virtual disk used by WSL2; And even the performance of WSL1 with Windows drives On ubuntu WSL measure performance with oneliner that writes one byte to a file, reads it back and obtains file info (stat). But it comes with a caveat. Steps to reproduce the behavior. com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions, WSL1 outperforms WSL2 w. By default, WSL2 uses a virtualized file system that can introduce some overhead. Work from Windows, as usual, editing the code on Linux. WSL 2 uses a custom file system called the WSL 2 Filesystem (WSL2FS). It provides a far more performant Oct 21, 2021 · The Windows Resource Monitor shows only 50% load at full load of the WSL, with the standard driver from Microsoft for CPUs is at 100%. So the Windows/WSL2 file system performance hit is a minimal impact to me. Linux userspace is a key part of any Linux system, and WSL provides a pre-built Ubuntu userspace . When working with mounted volumes, keep your project files within the Linux filesystem for optimal performance. This will be a critical performance benchmark for WSL and Cygwin. Add these lines to your /etc/fstab: # Improve Windows drive mount performance C: /mnt/c drvfs rw,noatime 0 0 Code language: PHP (php) Strategic Project Location. No, Linux is running alongside Windows, not under it. Oct 22, 2020 · I'm not convinced that you need to go all in and do all your development inside a container too. That's why they recommend keeping everything you do with wsl2 inside it's file system. "performance across OS file systems". Enable Polling for File Changes. 04 with kernel 6. GPU passthrough Nov 10, 2023 · I'm experiencing performance issues when using Visual Studio Code on WSL with projects stored on a different drive (D:), while my main drive is on "C:". Open Notepad or your preferred text editor. Didn't work because of slow cross filesystem performance of WSL2. It does so 1000 times. 0 and the performance was even worse. Volume Mounting Performance. If so, why should I use the WSL2 Linux subsystem? Instead of using VirtualBox? If WSL2's performance for accessing the Windows file system is extremely poor, why do you want to exchange visits? In this way, WSL2 seems to be of little value! Feb 23, 2021 · This workspace is on the Windows file system (/mnt/c). I decided to open this as a separate issue because although it's related to the generic issue of filesystem performance it's directly related to WSL 2 while the other issues are for WSL 1 and it's Jan 25, 2025 · [wsl2] memory=6GB processors=4 swap=2GB Adjust these values based on your system’s capabilities. One way around this is to use WSL2, which is a different variant of WSL that runs under a specialized, lightweight VM. g. This tutorial is perfect for those who are looking to enhance their WSL2 performance on a Windows system. I'm sure it happens to more people. But why do we see such degraded performance with Windows File System I see people are downvoting answers here, so this is a comment : If your aim is better integration of WSL with Windows - stay with WSL1. The performance gain was also huge and I didn't notice any latency. However, WSL2 Oct 7, 2020 · Essentially, Windows files are now a "remote" file system. wslconfig file in your Windows home directory with customized settings, such as: [wsl2] memory=4GB # Limits the WSL2 memory usage to 4GB processors=2 # Sets the number of CPUs to 2; This configuration file helps maintain system resources while running WSL2. Accessing Windows files from WSL is straightforward. WSL2 の /mnt 以下で作業をすると非常に遅い issue: [wsl2] filesystem performance is much slower than wsl1 in /mnt · Issue #4197 · microsoft/WSL; WSL の HOME directory(~) 以下で作業しよう; 詳細 How can I optimize Vite performance on WSL2 To optimize Vite performance on WSL2, consider the following strategies based on the common issues and solutions identified in the search results: 1. System Requirements: Windows 10/11 with WSL2 Jan 6, 2021 · If any of you find Jekyll compile-time(bundle exec jekyll serve) is too slow on your Windows - WSL environment, make sure that your blog is NOT located on Windows Filesystem! TL;DR WSL2 is very slow in Windows filesystem (/mnt/c). The external drive is necessary however. Your C: drive is mounted under the /mnt/c On / it's actually the reverse. For optimal performance, we recommend moving the workspace to the Linux file system (~/home). WSL2 is more than 2 times faster than WSL1. thanks! File handling is different: WSL1 stores files on NTFS (faster for Windows access), while WSL2 uses ext4 (faster for Linux operations). In this guide, we’ll explore essential techniques for managing your WSL2 file system, from basic storage concepts to advanced optimization … Read more Docker Desktop with or without WSL2 activated were extremely slow (~ 12 times slower than native experiments) when sharing docker volumes via the Windows file system. This kernel is managed and updated by Microsoft, ensuring it is up-to-date with the latest Linux improvements and features. If your aim is using graphical Linux apps - go to Windows 11 with WSL2. , bash), there are, in effect, a local (Linux) filesystem (where the home directory ‘~’ is located) and a ‘mounted’ file system for the Windows files. 73; WSL2 FS access to Windows on W11 is much slower than on Win10 (#9430), similarity score: 0. May 7, 2024 · WSL2 git is slow from gitlab (#6602), similarity score: 0. 2020-09-20 — 3 mins reading time. I feel like the doc we are pointing to is generic, and that we could easily write a WSL2 specific doc that talked about VS Code. Jan 29, 2025 · File System Performance Optimize Mount Options. This will reduce latency and improve file Feb 3, 2023 · > I really doubt that WSL2 will be at native speed with the Linux file system, because reads and writes still have to go through Windows kernel to be mapped into actual hardware reads/writes. May 7, 2019 · This static site is generated by self-made bash scripts. Jun 4, 2024 · WSL2 includes a complete Linux kernel running in a lightweight virtual machine (VM). For optimal performance, store your project files in the WSL2 file system located at /home/your-username/ rather than in the Windows file system under /mnt/c/. I also am always shown the following notification on first run: May 6, 2019 · Today we’re unveiling the newest architecture for the Windows Subsystem for Linux: WSL 2! Changes in this new architecture will allow for: dramatic file system performance increases, and full system call compatibility, meaning you can run more Linux apps in WSL 2 such as Docker. open file ~/. docker-compose up -d; docker-compose exec php bin/console cache:clear Sep 22, 2020 · Customers running Windows 10 version 1903 and 1909 can now enjoy faster file system performance, 100% system call compatibility, and be able to use Docker Desktop with the WSL2-based engine. Introduction. its not in the system path. Toward the end of the chapter, we performed resize operation on WSL2 virtual hard disk and concluded the chapter with the networking changes in WSL2. Ubuntu18. So there are still guides out there that tell you to do cross-OS file system work that shouldn't be done using wsl2. File System Performance: Integration with the Windows file system is limited. Second, WSL1 is faster on NTFS. Dec 12, 2023 · To fix performance issue: move files into WSL To allow multi-distro file access: move files into VHDX To workaround programs struggling with \\wsl. 0 only get 90MB/s, I still hard to believe this. 71; Closed similar issues: [WSL2] git is very slow even on the same filesystem (#8588), similarity score: 0. But on Windows 10 I don't think the performance issue is such a big deal. Additionally, WSL 2 provides a more seamless integration with Windows, allowing you to access Windows files from within the Linux environment. Oct 26, 2020 · Keep the volumes inside WSL2 as regular volume mount, so get the best performance for file system access. " I decided to open this as a separate issue because although it's related to the generic issue of filesystem performance it's directly related to WSL 2 while the other issues are for WSL 1 and it's Apr 26, 2023 · This testing is primarily focused on system and CPU benchmarks, including I/O. Microsoft is doing fantastic work integrating Linux with their Windows operating system. For best performance, we recommend moving the workspace to the Linux file system (~/home). Even factoring out the optimizations from WSL Disk performance there is still a 2-3x performance gain by sticking with WSL1 for operations on the NTFS drive. If so, why should I use the WSL2 Linux subsystem? Instead of using VirtualBox? If WSL2's performance for accessing the Windows file system is extremely poor, why do you want to exchange visits? In this way, WSL2 seems to be of little value! Mar 17, 2022 · You can access each file system from both systems. Running Ubuntu 18. How slow? I put on some music and timed it. Oct 9, 2022 · The code of the Windows System D drive must be copied to the Linux file system. Can you post the results when doing the same test on a file on / for WSL1 and WSL2?. WSL2 offers significant performance improvements over WSL1, especially when using the native Linux file system. on a cloud server or a VM: no. Per all the articles on the web I'm running the project out of ~ and not the windows mount. For example, when storing your WSL project files: Jan 7, 2025 · It improves compatibility with Linux tools, speeds up file system performance, and makes it easier to develop with a Linux-based environment. Aug 22, 2023 · Mounting an external drive has around 1/10 of the Performance it is on native windows. On my blog I show and explain to you a solution on how to make git commands faster under WSL2. 3GB/s, and WSL2 with 6. When working in WSL2 with a typical Linux shell (e. WSL2’s file system performance can be improved by adjusting mount options. Sep 4, 2021 · Its primary goals are to increase file system performance, as well as adding full system call compatibility. To manage this effectively, it’s advisable to keep the Linux system Jun 2, 2021 · Trying out WSL2 for the first time. Sep 4, 2023 · WSL2 performance on Windows shared drives is disastrous (x10 slower). まとめ. localhost : create symlink Jul 16, 2019 · The current WSL2 IO performance is just horrible, and the workarounds are too complicated for many use cases. So it seems like it's a file system performance issue. But user/sys time is low. Feb 3, 2025 · By moving your project into the WSL2 filesystem, you eliminate the performance penalty of Windows' file system interaction with Docker. Oct 8, 2020 · Filesystem performance of WSL2 is not great when you work on NTFS mounts within your Linux environment. One solution, provided you don't rely on other WSL2-specific features, is to set your image's WSL version to 1 by using wsl --set-version <distribution name> <versionNumber=1> . Jun 28, 2021 · Well, wsl2's big downside compared to wsl1 is it's cross-OS file system performance. updated: 2020-12-02. If ext4 on Linux is as fast as the virtual drive on the WSL2 system, then the last step is to figure out how to access that Linux partition directly from Windows and copy those same files without losing performance. Noticed build speeds of a React project were brutally slow. Configuring WSL2 system resources. Hyper-V, on the other hand, uses the same file system as the host operating system. When opening files stored on Windows (where all mine are/were) it painfully slow. May 8, 2020 · also for project files i have separate ext4 vhdx mounted on wsl2 distro, top speed file access, and your data is separated from the system(OS) disk, 👌 say your distro corrupted, windows had to reinstall without any back up of C: drive, no worries project files are in separate disk in a separate partition on real disk Almost all the performance constraints are I/O related; if you stay within the WSL2 file system you shouldn't really feel a noticeable difference VSCode and Docker also support hosting the running code / files in the WSL2 instance while using a Windows side client. Read more about these updates, including how to ensure your machine has them, in the blog post announcement . Accessing the WSL file system from Windows: The WSL file system is located under the path “\\wsl$”. Dec 26, 2024 · When using WSL 2, you will have access to features such as improved file system performance, better Docker support, and the ability to run background services. In this guide, we’ll explore essential techniques for managing your WSL2 file system, from basic storage concepts to advanced Sep 20, 2020 · WSL2 and File System Performance. Here are 13 seconds. The scripts invoke each other recursively (thus, many forks). on wsl2 an actual Linux kernel is running but performance issue comes in with windows file system and other IO related things. Jan 29, 2023 · @craigloewen-msft Okay, so yes, moving the files to the native WSL does work as intended (compile times around 1 second), but it doesn't really solve the issue. Project location significantly impacts performance: Jan 29, 2025 · Managing storage efficiently in WSL2 can significantly impact your development workflow. Step-by-Step Installation Guide Step 1: Enable WSL and Virtual Machine Jun 4, 2024 · Improved File System Performance: With WSL 2’s enhanced file system performance, operations that involve reading and writing large numbers of files (such as compiling code or managing version Sep 30, 2021 · You probably trace the system calls for file-system operations and see the difference between Ninja/Makefiles. It offers increased file system performance and full system call compatibility, making it an excellent choice for developers. A note of warning: Cross-system file access is extremely slow, especially in WSL2. As you could see, everything is much slower on win FS, but still usable. WSL may provide better performance when working directly on Windows files due to its translation layer. Sep 14, 2020 · Supper useful Article. Mar 2, 2022 · We recommend against working across operating systems with your files, unless you have a specific reason for doing so. 13. Create a new file and save it as . Nov 3, 2019 · The Windows NTFS file system is not a strong performer with small files in comparison with ext4. \\\\wsl$\\{distro_name}\\home\\{user Store the solution files on a Windows drive, run Rider in Windows, run tooling (like git) in WSL. Store the solution files on the WSL drive, run Rider in Windows, run tooling in WSL. That slow performance was killing me :/ on wsl1 performance was good but so many unsupported stuff. May 27, 2024 · What is WSL2? WSL2 is the latest version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux, providing a full Linux kernel running on a lightweight virtual machine. 79; Docker login & pull extremely slow on WSL2 (#8733), similarity score: 0. Oct 7, 2021 · Unfortunately, the currently WSL2 environment has one major performance issue. Understanding how to navigate and utilize the WSL file system can significantly boost your productivity. Architecture WSL1 : It translates Linux system calls into Windows system calls, which can lead to performance bottlenecks. This repository can be used to install Symfony. 04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs b) I also copied my project files into \wsl$\Ubuntu\home\ while having the Docker WSL2 integration enabled, then brought my images up with docker-compose from the WSL2 console. Reading from windows file system, WSL1 operates at 3. The configuration of WSL2 is managed through a file named . When you carry out compilation processes this is a real problem. Here's how: Open File Explorer and navigate to your user folder (usually C:\Users\[YourUsername]). io/ Also yes. Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 (WSL2) is now available and it has some nice new features such as the ability to run Linux docker containers from within your WSL Linux. Running starting docker volume shares from within the WSL2 context (Shell and file system) can benefit of a significantly faster near-native file access performance. WSL2 offers a powerful platform for running a Linux environment directly on Windows. Didn't work because Rider doesn't fully support that scenario (don't know anymore why exactly). This file system is designed to provide better performance and compatibility with Linux applications than the file system used by WSL 1. 6 days ago · One of the first things you'll notice with WSL2 is that I/O performance can be a bit sluggish, especially when dealing with large files or intensive disk operations. See full list on learn. It shocks me whole day and I still hard to believe this right now. Mar 7, 2025 · To further enhance performance, setting a high swappiness value is beneficial. WSL has its file system, which operates in a different way compared to Windows. Performance Considerations. Access Windows Files. Due to the poor I/O performance on Windows file system, I'm currently struggling on opening vim with plugins, or pull some git repos that have to be placed in Windows file system. 73 Aug 1, 2024 · Getting Your WSL2 Environment Ready for High-Performance Computing. Degrades for file-heavy operations and when accessing files on the Windows file system. Accordingly, a benchmark in the WSL 2 also shows differences… Mar 19, 2024 · The WSL2 file system is stored within a single virtual disk file that can significantly increase in size with continuous use. In contrast, WSL2 offers improved performance when working with Linux files because of the native file system support through the VM. Without caching, it means every "stat" operation has to make a round-trip to the host (multiple, actually, partially because of how Linux VFS works, and partially because of how 9p works). Vite may struggle with detecting file changes in WSL2 due to limitations in how file system events propagate. 04 on a Dell Latitude 9510 with an SSD. Clone your blog repo to the Linux filesystem (starting with ~/). Despite the fact that sometimes I rely on the full capability of WSL2 kernel (for compiling), the daily routine experience is as bad as hell. This is straight I/O on a single file where I would expect to see more or less the same perf between WSL1 and WSL2. microsoft. This file doesn’t exist by default, so you’ll need to create it. Easiest is to enter this path in the Windows file explorer address bar and press enter. Ran a benchmark using sysbench --test=fileio --file-test-mode=seqwr run in ~ and got: Mar 14, 2025 · WSL2 is a major upgrade from the original WSL and offers several improvements: Full Linux kernel: WSL2 features a real Linux kernel, enabling better compatibility and improved performance for Linux applications. Using ext4 file system on mounted drives will give you “near native” performance Mar 24, 2024 · However, when using mounted volumes in WSL2, data is stored on the external file system rather than the local Linux file system, meaning the caching mechanisms cannot be used to speed up access to the data on the mounted volume. wslconfig. bashrc. And yes, sure, I fully expect some performance loss, but there is now way the performance is over 10x when using the windows filesystem instead of the wsl native file system. WSL2 it is highly advised you do NOT use /mnt/… due to performance reasons. Sep 3, 2020 · VSCode dev containers is supposed to make this kind of setup repeatable / shareable, but on Windows I've found the performance to be unusable which all seemed to boil down to the speed delay in wsl2 mapping files to the host. Jan 4, 2025 · 2. I'm happy with Windows (and VS 2019) as my development environment, and then I use Linux containers for application testing and deployment. Running npm start on my Lenovo Yoga laptop with an i7 processor and 16gb of RAM on a Create React App project freshly set up, It Feb 7, 2025 · Whether you’re working with large projects or running multiple distributions, understanding how to optimize your WSL2 file system is crucial for maintaining peak performance. It was also made available for older Windows 10 installations (1903 and 1909). Sep 7, 2019 · Over the course of using my WSL2-backed share, I receive warnings and experience very obvious performance degradation of static code analysis in the IDE. Nov 15, 2024 · On the other hand, WSL2 uses a lightweight virtual machine to run a full Linux kernel, providing better compatibility and performance, especially for file system heavy operations. The builds are extremely slow if you use Mar 1, 2025 · File System: WSL2 uses a real Linux kernel, which allows for better file system performance and compatibility with Linux applications. Is there a workaround to increase read/write performance on mounted drives in wsl2? Thanks in advance for the help. I find it personally quite useful being able to do native Linux development on the Windows partition of On / it's actually the reverse. On vmstat(8) output I see insanely high number of interrupts and context switches. Increased performance: The file system performance is significantly faster than WSL1, making it ideal for tasks such as code compilation. This value directs the system to aggressively compress memory pages, prioritizing file system cache and optimizing performance, even in low-memory situations. Feb 20, 2022 · You can see WSL2 on NTFS gives the worst performance at nearly 4 minutes, fifty times slower than the same test on the VM drive. 0 only get 90MB/s. The culprit here is the way WSL2 handles file system access. I've tried kernel 6. xlxuss tqnq nrr mff cmtyb xdb rafqzac rmnl lawipy skhhwi gkrrzj ozwqx mywsa ypsberl nay