Help - adding USB drive to existing virtual box

[Super Dash]

Hi,
I hope that someone can help me. I am trying to either increase the size of my memory in my virtual box, and/or to add a USB drive to the virtual box. I have a Mac OS X Version 10.9.2 (I am not a computer tech - just a regular person who does not understand most of this) and I have virtual box set up running a windows program.

Is anyone able to help in any way? I really appreciate your time.
Thanks

[Perryg]

Moving to Mac host.

[socratis]

I am trying to either increase the size of my memory in my virtual box, and/or to add a USB drive to the virtual box

These are two unrelated issues.

Increasing the memory of your virtual machine is as easy as sliding a slider in the VM Settings, System, Motherboard window, as long as the virtual machine is shut down. Be careful not to assign more memory than you can afford, i.e. if you have X GB of free memory, do not assign more than X-1 GB to your virtual machine.

For USB support, please read Chapter 3.10 USB support of the user manual. If you have any specific questions afterwards, please feel free to ask.

[mpack]

The OP PM'd me before posting his question. I believe he's a non-technical type, and to him "increasing the memory" actually means to enlarge disk space. I did warn him that this choice of phrasing was unconventional.

I would suggest that by far the easiest way to increase disk space in a VM is to add a second drive using the VM Storage settings (fully shut down the guest first). This time, make sure the new drive is more than big enough. Remember that after adding the drive it will need to be initialized by the guest OS before use. In a Windows guest all you usually need to do is launch the Disk Manager (Start | Run | "diskmgmt.msc"). You may need to right click the drive and create a partition on it, filling the disk. It may offer to convert the drive to Windows Dynamic Disk format: don't (*). Be sure to tick the "Quick Format" box.

Forget using USB to access external storage. That isn't a good solution to fixing a VMs chronic disk space shortage.

(*) Windows Dynamic Disk is the Windows equivalent of LVM, and should not be confused with a dynamic VDI.

[Super Dash]

Thank you all for your help. Greatly appreciated.
John