Virtual Size in comparison to Physical size

[Predatorian]

Hello all,

I am wondering, if I were to create a 2TB virtual drive, how large is this in comparison to physical disk drive space? Thanks for the help guys/gals!

[Perryg]

Depends. Dynamic will only use the amount that you have put in it (to start with) and grow accordingly. Fixed will take up the full 2 TB if you have that much free space. Better take a vacation while that is being created, as it will take a very long time.

[Predatorian]

So, it's basically, one for one when creating a virtual hard drive or does the format matter, VMDK, VHD?

[Perryg]

I try to stick to the native format on all Virtualizers. VDI is VirtualBox. VHD is Microsoft and vmdk is VMware.
Seems to have less issues that way.

[Predatorian]

Ok, but is it one for one with virtualbox?

[Perryg]

What do you mean is it one for one?

[Predatorian]

If I make a 20 gigabyte virtual harddrive, will it take up 20 gigabytes on the physical harddrive?

[Perryg]

It will be able to grow to that size if you use dynamic, or it will be that size if you use fixed.
Example you create a dynamic drive of 20GB and install an OS that takes up 5GB of space. You will only have a 5GB file on your host but it can grow to the full 20GB if needed.
There is no compression of that is what you are getting at.

[Predatorian]

Thank you, that makes sense. Thank you for your help. Every time I googled for this answer, I kept getting how to create a virtual harddreive, and not how large it would be physically.