One thing you might want to check out is the health of the HDD as seeing many Command READ/WRITE(10) took nn.nnn seconds like this has at times shown to be a failing disk. What I'd suggest is making sure you have a current backup of the User Data and then use the manufacture specific utility for your HDD to test to make sure it pass a complete and full low level testing of the platters. Note that depending on the size of the HDD this type of testing can easily take several hours if not longer.
BTW Just an FYI, Linux Mint is not officially supported as an Host OS for VMware Workstation. Oh and before you say Linux Mint is base on Ubuntu don't because I know it is and it doesn't matter its' still not a supported Host OS! 