Nutanix VirtIO includes device drivers specifically used by Windows VMs hosted in the Nutanix environment to enhance their stability and performance. This concept is very similar to VMware Tools for ESXi environments.
The VirtIO bundles various drivers including:
- Balloon Driver
- Ethernet Adapter
- RNG Device
- SCSI pass-through controller
- Serial Driver
- SCSI Controller
The VirtIO package is found on the Support Portal under AHV (please select “VirtIO” from the corresponding drop-down menu).
To note, the device driver versions contained within the various available Nutanix VirtIO packages may be the same if there have been no updates for the drivers between the package releases. To correlate the driver versions associated with each VirtIO package release, please reference KB 5491 in the Support Portal.
Further to note, beginning with VirtIO package release version 1.1.6 all driver versions match the VirtIO package version.