Is database partitioning for performance reasons meaningful in a virtualized environment? When running SQL server on physical hardware, placing database data and log files on separate disks or RAID arrays can benefit performance, resilience, and maintenance. Partitioning the database over separate physical disks and RAID arrays is also an option. Simply put, more spindles is better.

When SQL server is running in a virtual environment, the concept of spindles applies differently. You often have little to no direct control over what physical disks your virtual disks are mapped to. Does this mean that it doesn't make sense to partition a database, or split the data and log files over separate virtual disks, the same way we do with physical ones?

I understand that there are other reasons to partition databases that still apply in virtual environments. For instance, large read-only tables can be in a separate partition that only needs to be backed up once, but this is not the subject of this post.
Partition-elimination is an awefully good reason to still partition even in a virtual environment, if your queries are such that they can use take advantage of it.