We have several Windows VMs (all user editions, no server editions). We install virus scanners inside the VMs to protect them from users. The real-time file scanning kills I/O performance inside the VM though (I see disk access times spike to 2000ms while it runs). Multiply that by 50x and you get a lot of I/O churn. We can disable real-time file scanning, but that defeats the purpose of having it there in the first place.
I think creating snapshots every few hours is a better solution, but I wanted to ask if anyone else has found a better solution for this.
The virus scanner is Symantec Endpoint and the VMs are running on top of vSphere 4.1.