>1. You obviously can't direct map local fixed drives, and direct access to USB drives yields the same 200-300 MBps read performance, which also has a lot of ji

>1. You obviously can't direct map local fixed drives, and direct access to USB drives yields the same 200-300 MBps read performance, which also has a lot of jitter. Of course you can, and if you want to access the "host" OS just boot the drive in a VM and hope for the best. USB will be just as bad as it'd be without VMs. >2. To pass-through a GPU you need to be running an ESXi with all the consequences. In particular, moving a VM, while doable through export/import, becomes a royal pain in the ass. I think for this you'd probably just want to use a live distro with KVM rather than messing with ESXi. But yeah, it'll be significantly harder. It's a strange problem so you'll need something more configurable than vmware player. >PS. And try and express your thoughts in a bit more civil manner next time. I don't see anything offensive in my comment, unless I'm supposed to be offended by your "pain in the ass" wording.