VMWare Virtual Disk

[Simon_178]

Hi Gurus,

Can you somebody help answer this question for me please.

See this post which I started today

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1399993

Does the term VMWare virtual disk include SAN storage or does it refer to internal disks on ESX host?

Thanks in advance, points awarded.

Thanks

Simon

[Uwe Zessin]

I've answered in the thread you referenced to keep the discussion in one thread.

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

I'll answer here simply for the other folks that might search and find this forum thread and never see the other one...

A VMware virtual disk is simply a file, or set of files that reside in a larger filesystem (vmfs datastore, rdm, etc) accessible to a VMware Server.

The "virtual disk" appears to the guest as it's "physical" disk and is where the Operating System and/or Application and Application Data reside.

This location (the vmfs datastore) may be solely used for 1 particular virtual machine or it may be shared across several/many virtual machines.

Example:

Virtual Machine 1 - Windows 2003 Server (Name of vm)
Windows 2003 Server.vmdk, size 8GB
Windows 2003 Server_1.vmdk, size 20GB

Windows 2003 Server.vmdk shows up as Disk0 and usually holds the C: partition

Windows 2003 Server_1.vmdk would than show up as Disk1 and probably a D: partition (or any other letter) where applications have been installed.

So, in conclusion... these "virtual disk"'s can reside anywhere. Local Storage (internal disks), SAN/NAS Storage, iSCSI Storage, etc.

Steven

[Gordon Sjodin]

A virtual disk could reside on any disk that is formated with the vmfs file system. A vmware guest can also access a RAW disk.

[Simon_178]

Many Thanks for your help, appreciate your comments.