VMDK

VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) is a file format that describes containers for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtual machines like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox.

Initially developed by VMware for its virtual appliance products, VMDK is now an open format^[1] and is one of the disk formats used in the Open Virtualization Format for virtual appliances.

The maximum VMDK size is generally 2TB for most applications, but in September 2013, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduced 62TB VMDK capacity.

Uses

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
ILookIX: Computer forensic examination suite

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.

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v t e Disk image file formats
Optical discs	CCD/IMG/SUB CUE/BIN CSO DAA IBP/IBQ ISO ISZ MDS/MDF MDX NRG UIF
Hard disks	DMG FVD IMG ISO NDIF QCOW UDIF VDI VHD VMDK WIM
Floppy disks	ADF/ADZ DC42/DART DCF DMS IMG/IMA/IMZ VFD
CD-DA	Disc Description Protocol
Comparison of disc image software