Benchmarking the Windows Virtual Desktop

A closer look at the WVD IOPS values

Posted February 2021 10 minute read

Preface

Do you get what you paid for?, Microsoft advertises certain IO speeds regarding their storage tiers for Windows Virtual Desktops, or WVD in short.

How do these figures hold up to measured values? We used the VDI Drones benchmarking tool to give an answer to that question.

We are aware that the results are a sample taken on a certain time, and we, by no means, claim that this is the ultimate truth. These figures are an indication and are subject to interpretation.

Testing conditions

We used the following WVD type with all three tests;

Advertised values

Disk TierSSD Premium (P10)SSD Standard (E10)HDD Standard (S10)
Provisioned IOPS500 IOPS500 IOPS500 IOPS
Provisioned throughput100 MBps60 MBps60 MBps
Max Burst-IOPS3500 IOPS
Max Burst throughput170 MBps
Windows Virtual Desktop advertised IO performance

Measured values

Disk typeSSD PremiumSSD StandardHDD Standard
I/O Score798.7656.9679.6
4k Write1783 IOPS683 IOPS601 IOPS
4k Read3016 IOPS2903 IOPS3278 IOPS
4k-64 Write43.1 MB/s38.5 MB/s43.4 MB/s
4k-64 Read250 MB/s249 MB/s265 MB/s
Sequential Write77.8 MB/s82.1 MB/s86 MB/s
Sequential Read774 MB/s773 MB/s777 MB/s
Write Access1431 IOPS861 IOPS908 IOPS
Read Access33201 IOPS33146 IOPS33142 IOPS
Actual measured values

Vm’s Tier performance comparison

What is the difference between different virtual machines in Azure? We took a small sample of the most common used virtual machines to demonstrate the difference between them using the VDI Drones benchmark tool. 

The D-series Azure Virtual Machines offer a combination of vCPUs, memory, and temporary storage able to meet the requirements associated with most production workloads. We took these machines as test compartments because of frequent use and easy scale ability. In these tables you can see the difference in capacity between the virtual machines. This demonstrates the usefulness of the tool, testing before bigger scale implementations and finding the right fit for your environment.

DS1_v2 – 1 vcpu 3.5 Gib memoryDS2_v2 – 2 vcpu 7 Gib memoryDS3_v2 – 4 vcpu 14 Gib memory
CPU Score 7091026.51760.4
ALU Stress – single core435 MIPS444 MIPS547 MIPS
ALU Stress – Multicore429 MIPS902 MIPS2332 MIPS
FPU Stress – Single Core442 MIPS451 MIPS547 MIPS
FPU Stress – MultiCore435 MIPS899 MIPS2396 MIPS
Encryption – single core53.5 Mib/s60.6 Mib/s72.9 Mib/s
Encryption – Multicore47.7 Mib/s111 Mib/s277 Mib/s
Compress – single core10597 KiB/s11538 KiB/s13561 KiB/s
Compress – Multicore10721 KiB/s22228 KiB/s58765 KiB/s
Cache – L11.72 ns1.66 ns1.24 ns
CPU scores
DS1_v2 – 1 vcpu 3.5 Gib memoryDS2_v2 – 2 vcpu 7 Gib memoryDS3_v2 – 4 vcpu 14 Gib memory
Memory Score1086.51634.61808.8
Memory copy920 MB/s1645 MB/s1862 MB/s
Memory latency78 ns61.6 ns56.9 ns
Memory scores
DS1_v2 – 1 vcpu 3.5 Gib memoryDS2_v2 – 2 vcpu 7 Gib memoryDS3_v2 – 4 vcpu 14 Gib memory
I/O Score498.87951624.8 
4k Write465 IOPS992 IOPS3989 IOPS
4k Read3741 IOPS4110 IOPS12940 IOPS
4k-64 Write64.6 MB/s69.2 MB/s86.4 MB/s
4k-64 Read304 MB/s486 MB/s669 MB/s
Sequential Write33.6 MB/s53.4 MB/s109 MB/s
Sequential Read220 MB/s509 MB/s994 MB/s
Write Access458 IOPS963 IOPS1907 IOPS
Read Access33011 IOPS44424 IOPS78821 IOPS

Conclusion

The measured values are pretty much equal or better than advertised. Although the advertised values are not specific in terms of write/read.

An other thing to take away from this test, the processor configuration has a big impact on the IO performance. It be no surprise that you should equip IO heavy loads on WVD machines with at least 4 vCPU’s.

One remarkable thing is ofcourse the HDD standard outperforming the standard SSD. We need to get in contact with Microsoft on that. We all suspect that they are not actual harddisk provisioned, but are indeed also SSD’s. Since almost no-one will select a HDD when provisioning new Windows Virtual Desktops, this could explain better performance measured, but this remains unclear.

Want to have a go yourself?, start measuring your virtual desktop with our free benchmark software.