vmxnet3 network adapter

What

When creating a virtual machine in VMware Workstation the default virtual network adapter is „e1000“. This adapter works fine in most cases but if you are working with heavy network load like iSCSI this adapter is not the right.
There are several virtual network adapters by VMware as described in the document „VMware Virtual Networking Concepts“ where the latest vmxnet paravirtualised network adapter „vmxnet3“ usually does the trick.

How

Stop the virtual machine. You can edit the vmx-file while the virtual machine is running, but the running configuration with the e1000 adaptor will be written to the vmx-file next time the virtual machine is shut down or restarted.

Edit the vmx-file which normally is in the folder to each virtual machine from
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
to
ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
If you have defined multiple network adapters you should consider to change the type on each adapter.

And then start the virtual machine.

Please notice that when changing the network adapter type on a virtual Windows machine then it will be handled as a new network adapter not a replace. This will among other thing have the effect that your network configurations will be default on the new network adapter.
This is why I would recommend setting the virtual network adapter type as one of the first things when configuring a virtual Windows machine.
I can't tell how other operating systems like freeBSD or Linux will act as I have not tried.

Why

As mentioned using the vmxnet3 paranirtualised network adapter will give you extra network performance. There might be an increased memory pressure on the virtual machine. Personally I haven't experienced severe penalty using the vmxnet3 adapter.

History

2019-03-06  Text moved from AzureAdmin blog.

2017-03-12  Blog entry created.