Microsoft Is Trying To Make Windows Subsystem For Linux Faster (WSL)

In our benchmarks of Windows Subsystem for Linux that allows a Linux environment to run atop Windows 10 via this new WSL kernel subsystem, the performance overall has overall been very good and often performing better than virtualized options. But the main area of poor performance is I/O, except now it's being worked on by Microsoft for greater improvements.

Microsoft's Rich Turner commented on a WSL bug report about poor I/O performance, "Bear with us - we're working closely with the Windows file storage team on a number of improvements that'll result in noticeable perf improvements, plus improved interop etc. in future OS releases."

It will be interesting to see how much further Microsoft advanced WSL in Windows 10 updates in 2018. It is worth pointing out there is some "moderate" WSL performance improvements in their recently released Fall Creator's Update. I've been meaning to benchmark that and hope to get some fresh Windows 10 WSL vs. Linux performance numbers in the days ahead with the main area that's been lagging behind is I/O speed.