Just take a look at VBoxManage --help for a crazy list of settings and features that VBox has accumulated during the past ~10 years.
It even supports ATA TRIM so your fs-driver can discard blocks and keep the VDI-file deflated at all times.
Performance-wise: Compiling stuff within VBox on an i7 quad-core (-j5) is almost as fast as native. X on Linux-VMs feels native too, especially when running in fullscreen.