How does a VHD work?

[BorisTheAnimal]

Hi,

I've tried to understand how they work and such but I'm still a bit confused and I do have a question, for example if you make a big virtual hard drive, does it take up "real" space or is it just virtual?

Like if I decided to make a 2 terabyte virtual hard drive would I then need for example a Seagate hard drive with 2 terabyte of space or would the vhd space really be virtual?

 

[groze]

You would need space on the hard drive to hold the virtual drive.

You got two options dynamical, it will grow up to the maximum size you allocate or you can do a fixed size. Fixed size takes awhile to create. Either way it is still going to require space on your hard to maximum size you allocate.

 

[LMiller7]

A VHD is virtual in the sense that it is not a physical hard drive. But call it what you will it still requires real space on the hard drive to store it's data. That space is in the form of a file. Usually a dynamic VHD is recommended and in that case the file is only as large as the used space in the VHD. When files are deleted from the VHD the space may still exist in the VHD file. The downside it that performance may suffer if you create many files on the VHD. A fixed size VHD mayl provide better performance but it requires a file the full size of the VHD.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

You would need space on the hard drive to hold the virtual drive.

You got two options dynamical, it will grow up to the maximum size you allocate or you can do a fixed size. Fixed size takes awhile to create. Either way it is still going to require space on your hard to maximum size you allocate.

Ah right thought so too, damn would have been interersting if not.

 

[LMiller7]

A VHD that didn't require disk space for data storage would be magic and in violation of the laws of physics.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

A VHD that didn't require disk space for data storage would be magic and in violation of the laws of physics.

Aye but would be interesting nonetheless.