Configuring advanced storage
In VMware Workstation virtual machines, you have lots of options to work with virtual machine disks. Some of the most common advanced scenarios will be discussed in the following sections. You'll read about using raw devices as disks in a virtual machine, mounting virtual machine disk files from a Linux host operating system, and changing some properties of virtual disks.
Using devices as virtual machine disks
When a virtual machine is being created, the virtual machine will use a virtual machine disk file by default. In some situations, it may be preferable to use a raw device instead of a virtual machine disk file, particularly if the performance matters. As VMware Workstation always uses a filesystem on a host operating system, some delay will be caused as a result of this. When the virtual machine writes directly on a raw device, this delay is avoided. But using a raw device means that you will need to prepare this device before starting the installation.
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