diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index fb311598..b907f50b 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 .vagrant/
+.virtualbox/
 log/
 user-data
 config.rb
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6e11408e..f4202741 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,6 +8,12 @@ IRC: #coreos on freenode.org
 
 Mailing list: [coreos-dev](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/coreos-dev)
 
+## Linux Hosts using VirtualBox
+The virtio NIC driver can cause random reboots
+due to a kernel paging request in the RX path.
+The `linux-virutalbox` branch avoids this issue
+by changing the NIC type to an Intel device.
+
 ## Streamlined setup
 
 1) Install dependencies
diff --git a/Vagrantfile b/Vagrantfile
index 0f815d56..a9318885 100644
--- a/Vagrantfile
+++ b/Vagrantfile
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 # # vi: set ft=ruby :
 
 require 'fileutils'
+require_relative 'util.rb'
 
 Vagrant.require_version ">= 1.6.0"
 
@@ -30,9 +31,16 @@ $share_home = false
 $vm_gui = false
 $vm_memory = 1024
 $vm_cpus = 1
+$num_big_instances = 0
+$vm_big_memory = 8192
+$vm_big_cpus = 2
 $vb_cpuexecutioncap = 100
 $shared_folders = {}
 $forwarded_ports = {}
+$update_channel = "alpha"
+# Additional disks to configure on each node
+$num_data_disks = 0
+$data_disk_size = 10 # GBytes
 
 # Attempt to apply the deprecated environment variable NUM_INSTANCES to
 # $num_instances while allowing config.rb to override it
@@ -49,11 +57,17 @@ def vm_gui
   $vb_gui.nil? ? $vm_gui : $vb_gui
 end
 
-def vm_memory
+def vm_memory(instance)
+  if instance > $num_instances then
+    return $vm_big_memory
+  end
   $vb_memory.nil? ? $vm_memory : $vb_memory
 end
 
-def vm_cpus
+def vm_cpus(instance)
+  if instance > $num_instances then
+    return $vm_big_cpus
+  end
   $vb_cpus.nil? ? $vm_cpus : $vb_cpus
 end
 
@@ -63,14 +77,12 @@ Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
   # forward ssh agent to easily ssh into the different machines
   config.ssh.forward_agent = true
 
-  config.vm.box = "coreos-alpha"
-  config.vm.box_url = "https://alpha.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current/coreos_production_vagrant_virtualbox.json"
+  config.vm.box = "coreos-%s" % $update_channel
+  config.vm.box_url = "https://%s.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current/coreos_production_vagrant_virtualbox.json" % $update_channel
 
-  ["vmware_fusion", "vmware_workstation"].each do |vmware|
-    config.vm.provider vmware do |v, override|
-      override.vm.box_url = "https://alpha.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current/coreos_production_vagrant_vmware_fusion.json"
-    end
-  end
+  # Note: Having VirtualBox be the first config.vm.provider means
+  # it will be the default provider.  For details on this see:
+  #   https://www.vagrantup.com/docs/providers/basic_usage.html
 
   config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |v|
     # On VirtualBox, we don't have guest additions or a functional vboxsf
@@ -81,12 +93,23 @@ Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
     config.ignition.enabled = true
   end
 
+  ["vmware_fusion", "vmware_workstation"].each do |vmware|
+    config.vm.provider vmware do |v, override|
+      override.vm.box_url = "https://%s.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current/coreos_production_vagrant_vmware_fusion.json" % $update_channel
+    end
+  end
+
+  config.vm.provider :parallels do |v, override|
+    override.vm.box_url = "http://%s.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current/coreos_production_vagrant_parallels.json" % $update_channel
+  end
+
   # plugin conflict
   if Vagrant.has_plugin?("vagrant-vbguest") then
     config.vbguest.auto_update = false
   end
 
-  (1..$num_instances).each do |i|
+  total_instances=$num_instances+$num_big_instances
+  (1..total_instances).each do |i|
     config.vm.define vm_name = "%s-%02d" % [$instance_name_prefix, i] do |config|
       config.vm.hostname = vm_name
 
@@ -120,20 +143,26 @@ Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
         config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: guest, host: host, auto_correct: true
       end
 
+      config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
+        vb.gui = vm_gui
+        vb.memory = vm_memory i
+        vb.cpus = vm_cpus i
+        vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--cpuexecutioncap", "#{$vb_cpuexecutioncap}"]
+        config.ignition.config_obj = vb
+      end
+
       ["vmware_fusion", "vmware_workstation"].each do |vmware|
         config.vm.provider vmware do |v|
           v.gui = vm_gui
-          v.vmx['memsize'] = vm_memory
-          v.vmx['numvcpus'] = vm_cpus
+          v.vmx['memsize'] = vm_memory i
+          v.vmx['numvcpus'] = vm_cpus i
         end
       end
 
-      config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
-        vb.gui = vm_gui
-        vb.memory = vm_memory
-        vb.cpus = vm_cpus
-        vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--cpuexecutioncap", "#{$vb_cpuexecutioncap}"]
-        config.ignition.config_obj = vb
+      config.vm.provider :parallels do |vb|
+        vb.memory = vm_memory i
+        vb.cpus = vm_cpus i
+        vb.name = vm_name
       end
 
       ip = "172.17.8.#{i+100}"
@@ -167,6 +196,10 @@ Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
           config.ignition.path = 'config.ign'
         end
       end
+
+      if $num_data_disks > 0
+        attach_volumes(config, $num_data_disks, $data_disk_size)
+      end
     end
   end
 end
diff --git a/util.rb b/util.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d4c682d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/util.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+
+def get_provider
+  # Look for "--provider foo"
+  provider_index = ARGV.index('--provider')
+  if (provider_index && ARGV[provider_index + 1])
+     return ARGV[provider_index + 1]
+  end
+
+  # Look for "--provider=foo"
+  for i in 1 ... ARGV.length
+    if ARGV[i].include?('--provider=')
+      return ARGV[i].sub('--provider=', '')
+    end
+  end
+
+  # Note: The assumption of the default provider
+  # being VirtualBox is predecated on the order
+  # of the config.vm.provider calls in Vagrantfile
+  return ENV['VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER'] || 'virtualbox'
+end
+
+$provider = get_provider().to_sym
+
+class VagrantPlugins::ProviderVirtualBox::Action::SetName
+  alias_method :original_call, :call
+  def call(env)
+    machine = env[:machine]
+    driver = machine.provider.driver
+    uuid = driver.instance_eval { @uuid }
+    ui = env[:ui]
+
+    controller_name="SATA Controller"
+
+    vm_info = driver.execute("showvminfo", uuid)
+    controller_already_exists = vm_info.match("Storage Controller Name.*#{controller_name}")
+
+    if controller_already_exists
+      ui.info "already has the #{controller_name} hdd controller, skipping creation/add"
+    else
+      ui.info "creating #{controller_name} hdd controller"
+      driver.execute(
+        'storagectl',
+        uuid,
+        '--name', "#{controller_name}",
+        '--add', 'sata',
+        '--controller', 'IntelAHCI')
+    end
+
+    original_call(env)
+  end
+end
+
+# Add persistent storage volumes
+def attach_volumes(node, num_volumes, volume_size)
+
+  if $provider == :virtualbox
+    node.vm.provider :virtualbox do |v, override|
+      (1..num_volumes).each do |disk|
+        diskname = File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), ".virtualbox", "#{node.vm.hostname}-#{disk}.vdi")
+        unless File.exist?(diskname)
+          v.customize ['createhd', '--filename', diskname, '--size', volume_size * 1024]
+        end
+        v.customize ['storageattach', :id, '--storagectl', 'SATA Controller', '--port', disk, '--device', 0, '--type', 'hdd', '--medium', diskname]
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+  if $provider == :vmware_fusion || $provider == "vmware_workstation"
+    ["vmware_fusion", "vmware_workstation"].each do |vmware|
+      node.vm.provider vmware do |v, override|
+
+        vdiskmanager = '/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager'
+        if File.exist?(vdiskmanager)
+          dir = File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), ".vmware")
+          unless File.directory?( dir )
+            Dir.mkdir dir
+          end
+
+          (1..num_volumes).each do |disk|
+            diskname = File.join(dir, "#{node.vm.hostname}-#{disk}.vmdk")
+            unless File.exist?(diskname)
+              `#{vdiskmanager} -c -s #{volume_size}GB -a lsilogic -t 1 #{diskname}`
+            end
+
+            v.vmx["scsi0:#{disk}.filename"] = diskname
+            v.vmx["scsi0:#{disk}.present"] = 'TRUE'
+            v.vmx["scsi0:#{disk}.redo"] = ''
+          end
+        end
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+  if $provider == :parallels
+    node.vm.provider :parallels do |v, override|
+      (1..num_volumes).each do |disk|
+        v.customize ['set', :id, '--device-add', 'hdd', '--size', volume_size * 1024]
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+end