Is there a performance difference between mounting a drive to an NTFS folder vs a drive letter

Question

I run multiple virtual PCs using a non-MS product (which I won't name here) but it is very intensive on disk IO, so I have separated the files to different physical disks. These disks have been mounted to different folders on a single partition (for my convenience) on yet another disk.

Unfortunately I still find performance at times still being a bit slow with task manager showing an avg response time peaking at over 53000ms (yes, close to a minute response time).

Is there any difference in IO performance between mounting disks to NTFS folders vs assigning each one their own drive letter?

Would there be any IO hit to the partition upon which these multiple disks are mounted? Such as IO having to navigate to the relevant subdirectories before finding the appropriate disk.

While I'm using Windows 8.1 on the host the question would be relevant to other versions as well.

Thanks

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting your concern here in Microsoft Community.

I would suggest you to post the same query in the TechNet forums. Our TechNet experts would be able to assist you better with this issue.

Link: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

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