- Vmware Maximum Vmdk Size
- Vmdk Shared Disk
- A Full Guide On How To Convert VHD To VMDK For Free
- How To Reduce Vmdk Size
- See All Results For This Question
- Vmdk Size Limit 6.7
| Filename extension | |
|---|---|
| Developed by | VMware |
| Latest release | 5.0 (December 20, 2011) |
| Type of format | Disk image file |
| Website | code.vmware.com/web/sdk/6.7/vddk |
- VMDK files are used by VMware software, but can also be mounted as a virtual disk using WinMount. Once the VMDK file has been mounted with WinMount, users can delete, copy, and modify files in the virtual disk.
- I'm thinking it's not a valid disk file. It's a leftover after VMware deleted the VM's files. Based on the phrase 'VMware was smart enough not to delete the VMDK.' VMware isn't that smart. If the VM wasn't 'removed,' but 'deleted from disk,' then all the files that VMware knew about in the VM's folder were deleted, leaving. Useless leftovers.
VMDK (short for Virtual Machine Disk) is a file format that describes containers for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtual machines like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox.
You converted the original vmdk disk file to vdi, compacted it and created new vmdk file from the compacted one. So, basically, you have created new virtual disk with new UUID which will not be recognized by VirtualBox unless you set the original disk’s UUID to the newly created one using the following command. Here is a PowerCLI script I use to find all orphaned VMDK’s in my vCenter environment. $arrayVC = 'virtualcenter2' Foreach ($strVC in $arrayVC) Connect-VIServer.
Initially developed by VMware for its proprietary[1]virtual appliance products, VMDK became an open format[2] with revision 5.0 in 2011, and is one of the disk formats used inside the Open Virtualization Format for virtual appliances.
The maximum VMDK size is generally 2TB for most applications, but in September 2013, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduced 62TB VMDK capacity.[3]
Support[edit]
All VMware virtualization products support VMDK; this includes VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation Player, VMware Server, VMware Fusion, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, and all software-plus-service offerings that incorporate them.
Third-party software that support VMDK include:
- Parallels Desktop for Mac version 10[4]
- VirtualBox[5]
- former SUSE Studio
- former Sun xVM[6] (ancestor of VirtualBox)
- Norton Ghost
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager[citation needed]
- DiskInternals VMFS Recovery[citation needed]
Format[edit]
The VMDK format includes multiple differing subformats, some of which store metadata in an external descriptor file, while others embed it with the main data in a single file.[7] A flat image allocates space ahead of time while a sparse images grows as the virtual machine writes to it. Flat images can use the underlying file system's sparse file capability, as is done with the vmfs format on ESXi. An image can also refer to a parent image and only store changes made in a copy-on-write fashion. This enables creating a snapshot of a virtual machine's state.
Extents[edit]
The descriptor specifies a series of one or more extents that typically refer to a file or device that holds the actual data, unless for example they are of type ZERO, which emulates a zero-filled extent.[8] Each extent can be marked either RW, RDONLY, or NOACCESS to signify that the virtual machine should have respectively read/write, read-only, or no access to that part of the disk. The number and types of extents in an image depend on its createType. An image with createType='custom' can contain an arbitrary combination of extents.
Virtual disk provisioning options[edit]
Flat disk images can be provisioned in one of three ways:
- thin: Blocks are not allocated or zeroed during initial provisioning. Instead, the image is created as a sparse file. Block allocation and zeroing is performed at first access.
- zeroedthick: Blocks are allocated during initial provisioning but are not zeroed until first access.
- eagerzeroedthick: Blocks are allocated and zeroed during initial provisioning.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Dhamdhere, Sangeeta (2013-10-31). Cloud Computing and Virtualization Technologies in Libraries. Information Science Reference. p. 130. ISBN9781466646322.
- ^'Virtual Disk Format 5.0'(PDF). VMware. December 20, 2011.
- ^'vSphere 5.5 Storage Enhancements Part 1: 62TB VMDK'. CormacHogan.com. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
- ^'Parallels Announces Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac'. www.parallels.com.
- ^'Chapter 5. Virtual storage'. www.virtualbox.org.
- ^'Oracle and Sun Microsystems - Strategic Acquisitions - Oracle'(PDF). www.sun.com.
- ^'VMDK-Handbook-Basics'. sanbarrow.com.
- ^'libvmdk/VMware Virtual Disk (VMDK) format specification'. github.com.
External links[edit]
Vmware Maximum Vmdk Size
| Filename extension | |
|---|---|
| Developed by | VMware |
| Latest release | 5.0 (December 20, 2011) |
| Type of format | Disk image file |
| Website | code.vmware.com/web/sdk/6.7/vddk |
VMDK (short for Virtual Machine Disk) is a file format that describes containers for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtual machines like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox.
Initially developed by VMware for its proprietary[1]virtual appliance products, VMDK became an open format[2] with revision 5.0 in 2011, and is one of the disk formats used inside the Open Virtualization Format for virtual appliances.
The maximum VMDK size is generally 2TB for most applications, but in September 2013, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduced 62TB VMDK capacity.[3]
Support[edit]
All VMware virtualization products support VMDK; this includes VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation Player, VMware Server, VMware Fusion, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, and all software-plus-service offerings that incorporate them.
Third-party software that support VMDK include:
- Parallels Desktop for Mac version 10[4]
- VirtualBox[5]
- former SUSE Studio
- former Sun xVM[6] (ancestor of VirtualBox)
- Norton Ghost
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager[citation needed]
- DiskInternals VMFS Recovery[citation needed]
Format[edit]
The VMDK format includes multiple differing subformats, some of which store metadata in an external descriptor file, while others embed it with the main data in a single file.[7] A flat image allocates space ahead of time while a sparse images grows as the virtual machine writes to it. Flat images can use the underlying file system's sparse file capability, as is done with the vmfs format on ESXi. An image can also refer to a parent image and only store changes made in a copy-on-write fashion. This enables creating a snapshot of a virtual machine's state.
Extents[edit]
Vmdk Shared Disk
The descriptor specifies a series of one or more extents that typically refer to a file or device that holds the actual data, unless for example they are of type ZERO, which emulates a zero-filled extent.[8] Each extent can be marked either RW, RDONLY, or NOACCESS to signify that the virtual machine should have respectively read/write, read-only, or no access to that part of the disk. The number and types of extents in an image depend on its createType. An image with createType='custom' can contain an arbitrary combination of extents.
Virtual disk provisioning options[edit]
Flat disk images can be provisioned in one of three ways:
A Full Guide On How To Convert VHD To VMDK For Free
- thin: Blocks are not allocated or zeroed during initial provisioning. Instead, the image is created as a sparse file. Block allocation and zeroing is performed at first access.
- zeroedthick: Blocks are allocated during initial provisioning but are not zeroed until first access.
- eagerzeroedthick: Blocks are allocated and zeroed during initial provisioning.
See also[edit]
How To Reduce Vmdk Size
References[edit]
See All Results For This Question
- ^Dhamdhere, Sangeeta (2013-10-31). Cloud Computing and Virtualization Technologies in Libraries. Information Science Reference. p. 130. ISBN9781466646322.
- ^'Virtual Disk Format 5.0'(PDF). VMware. December 20, 2011.
- ^'vSphere 5.5 Storage Enhancements Part 1: 62TB VMDK'. CormacHogan.com. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
- ^'Parallels Announces Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac'. www.parallels.com.
- ^'Chapter 5. Virtual storage'. www.virtualbox.org.
- ^'Oracle and Sun Microsystems - Strategic Acquisitions - Oracle'(PDF). www.sun.com.
- ^'VMDK-Handbook-Basics'. sanbarrow.com.
- ^'libvmdk/VMware Virtual Disk (VMDK) format specification'. github.com.