Using Virtual Disks in VirtualBox
The hard disk is one of the most important components of any computer equipment. And virtual machines are no exceptions to the rule. To represent hard disks, VirtualBox uses special files called disk image files. There are three popular formats used by virtualization software nowadays: VDI, VMDK, and VHD. The following table lists each one of them, along with a brief definition and the virtualization software that uses each:
|
Virtual Disk Format |
Definition |
Virtualization Software |
|---|---|---|
|
VDI |
Virtual Disk Image |
VirtualBox |
|
VMDK |
Virtual Machine Disk |
VMware |
|
VHD |
Virtual Hard Disk |
Microsoft Virtual PC |
One of the cool things about VirtualBox is that you can use any of these virtual disk formats on your virtual machines. Sure, you can create VDI images with only the VirtualBox GUI, but with the VBoxManage command-line interface, you can just open a Command Prompt or terminal window and issue the VBoxManage createhd command, which lets you specify if you want...
