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Adding a New Disk to a Virtual Machine

Virtual disks are the disk partitions of virtual machines. Each virtual disk is stored as a file on the file system of your host operating system. Since an entire disk partition is saved as a file, it is easy to back up, move and copy. You can even share virtual hard disks from a file server.

You add and remove virtual and raw disks using the Configuration Editor. The content of a virtual machine disk may be stored in a file or in a set of existing (raw) disk partitions on a physical host hard disk. Normally a virtual machine has at least one disk.

To add a new disk to the virtual machine:

1. Select File > Open, then open the virtual machine configuration file (.cfg) you want to modify.
2. Select Settings > Configuration Editor from the console.
3. Click the + sign next to IDE Drives or SCSI Devices.
4. Select the specific device node from the corresponding list (under IDE Drives or SCSI Devices) for where you want to create the virtual disk.
5. Make a selection from the Device Type field:
   • Virtual Disk >>Complete instructions

   • Raw Disk >>Complete instructions

     >>More on types of virtual hard disks that you can create

Related topics:

• Adding a new virtual disk
• Adding an existing virtual disk to a virtual machine
• Adding a physical (raw) disk to a virtual machine
• Assigning access rights to disk partitions
• Disk types you can assign to virtual disks
• Disk modes you can assign to virtual disks
• Changing the configuration of a virtual disk

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