From my experience, I have seen the majority of VDI workloads as Windows XP. Windows 7 did not perform so well for VDI due to high disk traffic. So, how does Windows 8 compare? Andrew Leibovici wrote and article recently to explore this question.
“In this test Windows 8 excelled when compared to Windows 7. During the boot process there were 54% less write IOs and 39% less read IOs at peak time in favor of Windows 8.
The average IO consumption, for both read and write, were approximately 50% lower when compared to Windows 7.
The storage performance conundrum may not be an issue for newer storage architectures, such as those using storage class memory devices, that can drive an enormous amount of IOPs at very low latency. However, it could also mean that architects are able to increase host density without increasing latency.