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Windows Server 2003 with multiple drives (vdi files)

Posted: 12. May 2009, 12:27
by northturton
Hi,

I'm currently trying to learn Windows Server 2003 (for exam 70-290) and so created a VM within VirtualBox. I'd tried Virtual PC but it ran like a 3-legged dog - Virtualbox is superb and I've never had a slow moment (2gb ram pentium 4 laptop)

However, when I came to learning about managing disk storage - i.e. using mirrored drives, striped drives, and RAID-5, I hit a quandary. I'd already used my entire 3gb vdi partition for Win2K3 and I needed more drive space!

I was pleased to discover, all I had to do was install the SATA controller drivers (from Intel?), create more vdi drives of a specific size, attached them as hard disks to the existing Win2K3 VM (and delete them from the list of VMs so it wasn't cluttered).

See attached screenshots of VirtualBox, and my File Server Management screen within my Win2K3 VM. It works like a dream!

Brian

Re: Windows Server 2003 with multiple drives (vdi files)

Posted: 13. May 2009, 19:45
by TerryE
Yup, it's a nice feature. I often get people say "I've run out of space on my system disk. How do I expand it?" Well, as you've found, one solution is simply to add more virtual disks.