Docker on WSL2: Why I Ditched Docker Desktop for a Linux "Sandbox"

Short summary

Docker Desktop is slow and resource-intensive on Windows, prompting this developer to switch to running Docker natively on WSL2 for better performance and stability. When Docker images, layers, and caches bloated the filesystem to 60GB, they solved it by partitioning OS and container data across separate VHDX disks mounted as external storage. The article provides complete bash and PowerShell automation scripts for Windows developers to replicate this setup.

• •Docker Desktop has performance and resource issues on Windows; WSL2 with native Docker offers faster, more stable operations
• •Docker data bloat (60GB+) is solved by partitioning OS and container storage across separate VHDX disks
• •Step-by-step guides with working bash and PowerShell scripts for automating the entire migration and setup

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