virtualbox.org

Hello,
I can not find any info what the --variant Standart,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX parameters means ??
I must to say I am frustrated by conciness of the ""Reference"" guide.
Well I suppose that the Standart means dynamic size image and is deafault and Fixed parametr means fixed size image.
And what do the other variant´s parameters mean ?

Great thanks.

Those are mostly optional parameters for the VMDK virtual disk format, though some variants (such as fixed vs standard) may also apply to other supported formats.

The "--format" parameter lets you specify a non-default virtual disk output format, e.g. "--format VMDK". Since this format can exist in a variety of flavors the "--variant" parameter lets you select what flavor you want. I'm afraid that explaining to you what kinds of VMDK exist is beyond the scope of this forum! (or the VBox manual for that matter). Google for a VMDK specification if you are genuinely interested. Suffice to say that for most people, letting VBox use defaults for these optional parameters (--format and --variant are both optional) is probably best.

mpack wrote:Those are mostly optional parameters for the VMDK virtual disk format, though some variants (such as fixed vs standard) may also apply to other supported formats.

The "--format" parameter lets you specify a non-default virtual disk output format, e.g. "--format VMDK". Since this format can exist in a variety of flavors the "--variant" parameter lets you select what flavor you want. I'm afraid that explaining to you what kinds of VMDK exist is beyond the scope of this forum! (or the VBox manual for that matter). Google for a VMDK specification if you are genuinely interested. Suffice to say that for most people, letting VBox use defaults for these optional parameters (--format and --variant are both optional) is probably best.

Thank you very much for spending time over the effort to bring me closer to understanding --variant parameters, but my interest to understand what "Split2G,Stream,ESX" means still keep alive.

bohemian wrote:my interest to understand what "Split2G,Stream,ESX" means still keep alive.

I quite understand but, to satisfy an interest in the details of the VMDK format, the best place to look is the VMDK specification. However a brief summary here may be in order:

Standard (the default) - one piece dynamic (sparse) extent file, plus a small descriptor file.
Fixed - extents will be flat (rather than dynamic/sparse).
Split2G - image is split into multiple extents, each less than 2GB.
Stream - image is optimized for streaming downloads rather than running in a VM. This type may be compressed.
ESX - I don't know what makes this different.