virtualbox.org

Hi,

I am converting from a Windows host over to Linux - Debian OS. I have 4 physical HDD. 1 x 120 GB SSD, 3 x 1TB SATA in the tower. I've been pondering what would be the ideal partitioning scheme to use with Virtualbox. Would Vbox guests run well on LVM? Looking for tips/suggestions. I'd definitely like some redundancy on my /home mount point that will store the majority of my important data. Thanks in advance.

VirtualBox doesn't care what the host does. Just make sure that the partition that the VM is on has plenty of space for the VMs to grow. My own preference would be to have as few partitions as possible. Let your files free range.

I'd like to use the advantages of software RAID and LVM. Figuring out the optimal configuration is complicated. A lot of reading required to get this right from the get-go so to avoid having to rebuild in order to get it right.

VirtualBox is just an application that allows you to run various guest on the same host and as Don said the partition scheme of the host does not come into play here with the exception of the size of the host partition that you store the guest on. It must be large enough to sustain the large files you will be creating. The raid and LVM that would be in consideration would be on the guest side and that is something that you will find everyone has a somewhat different opinion on. The best way to find out what you would need to do is contact the forum help of the guest OS for advice and also keep in mind that it would not really be a concern of VirtualBox but that of the guest OS and would be the same on metal.