Setting the Size of the Disk

You can set the size of the disk partition where the virtual machine resides. The maximum virtual disk size is currently 131072MB (128GB) for IDE virtual hard disks and 262144MB (256GB) for SCSI virtual hard disks.

When you specify the size of the virtual disk, that amount of disk space is not immediately occupied by the virtual disk files. The virtual disk files grow as needed when applications and files are added to it.

Note: If this setting is larger than the capacity of the host machine's hard disk, a warning message appears. You can ignore this message for now, as you can move this virtual machine to a drive that can hold it.

For example, you need about 500MB of actual free space on the file system containing the virtual disk to install Windows Me and popular applications such as Microsoft Office inside the virtual machine. You can setup a single virtual disk to hold these files. Or you can split them up — installing the operating system on the first virtual disk and using a second virtual disk for applications or data files.

A smaller virtual disk size can be specified using the Configuration Wizard. The initial size of the virtual disk is only a few kilobytes. It grows dynamically as needed up to the size specified. This occurs transparently to the guest operating system, which always believes that the virtual disk size is actually the full size specified. The actual maximum space available to the guest operating system inside the virtual disk may be very slightly smaller than the amount specified.

Note: You cannot change the maximum virtual disk size once a virtual disk has been created.

If you find that you require more space after you create the virtual machine, you can use the Configuration Editor to install additional virtual disks.