VMDK: Difference between revisions

Virtual Machine Disk Format
Filename extension	.vmdk
Internet media type	application/x-vmdk-disk, application/x-virtualbox-vmdk
Developed by	VMware
Type of format	Disk image file
Website	www.vmware.com/interfaces/vmdk.html

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Revision as of 17:48, 23 August 2014

VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) is a file format developed by VMware for its virtual appliance products, but is now an open format.^[1] The format is a container for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtual machines like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. The maximum VMDK size is generally 2TB for most applications, but in September, 2013, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduced 62TB VMDK capacity.

Products that use the VMDK format as the native file format include:

Third-party products with VMDK support include:

Parallels Desktop: Version 10 supports VMDK format^[2]
Sun xVM: natively supports VMDK format^[3]
QEMU: natively supports VMDK format and provides the qemu-img utility to convert VMDK images to a number of different formats
VirtualBox (part of the Oracle VM suite) also supports VMDK files^[4]
SUSE Studio: builds virtual appliances using the VMDK format, among others
Norton GHOST: Hard drive imaging software

Software libraries with VMDK support include:

thin: Blocks are not allocated or zeroed during initial provisioning. Block allocation and zeroing is performed at first access.
zeroedthick: Blocks are allocated during initial provisioning but are not zeroed until first access.
eagerzeroedthick: Blocks are allocated and zeroed during initial provisioning.

This software article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

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 Third-party products with VMDK support include:
+* [[Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac|Parallels Desktop]]: Version 10 supports VMDK format<ref>[http://www.parallels.com/news/parallels-desktop-10-for-mac-aug-20-2014/ Parallels Announces Parallels Desktop® 10 for Mac]</ref>
 * [[Sun xVM]]: natively supports VMDK format<ref>[http://www.sun.com/software/products/xvm/xvm_whitepaper.pdf Sun xVM Virtualization Portfolio: Virtualizing the Dynamic Datacenter]</ref>
 * [[QEMU]]: natively supports VMDK format and provides the ''qemu-img'' utility to convert VMDK images to a number of different formats

v t e Disk image file formats
Comparison of disc image software
Optical discs	BIN+CUE DAA IMG+CCD+SUB ISO ISZ MDF+MDS MDX NRG UIF
Hard disks	DMG FVD IMG ISO NDIF QCOW UDIF VDI VHD VMDK WIM
Floppy disks	ADF, ADZ DC42, DART DMS IMG, IMA, IMZ VFD
CD-DA	Disc Description Protocol
Convention: Any item in this table that has the form of "A+B" or "A+B+C" indicates a disk format that spans multiple files, where A contains the bulk of the data, and B and C are sidecar files.