I was wondering if choosing ext2 in a VM would improve performance, over say ext4.

Seems to me like wasted effort for the Guest to use a journaling filesystem when the Host already does that.

Also, are there any ext2/ext4 benchmark utilities that I can run in Bash to get the actual throughput numbers?

I suspect that, for all practical purposes, it won't make any noticeable difference.

Here's one resource: https://www.howtogeek.com/devops/how...and-ram-speed/

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Crazy talk. Do you also use a stone axe to cut firewood ?.
ext4 has so many improvements over ext2, the kernel devs have perodically talked of removing the latter support to get rid of the cruff from mainline. If you insist on such a strategy you can disable the journal in ext4. Test by all means, it's your machine, but it's very hard to construct a benchmark that mirrors a variable real-world workload. Not that I've bothered in a guest - the hyper-visor involved will have a bearing on what can be massaged to help (or hinder) as well.

Thanks frankbell. The utilities dd and fio will do.

Glad I was able to help.