Specifications

www.vmware.com
178
VMware GSX Server Virtual Machine Guide
5. Set the capacity for the new virtual disk.
You can set a size between 0.1GB (100MB) and 256GB for a SCSI virtual disk or
128GB for an IDE virtual disk. The default is 4GB.
By default, Allocate all disk space now is checked.
Allocating all the space at the time you create the virtual disk gives somewhat
better performance, but it requires as much disk space as the size you specify for
the virtual disk.
A preallocated virtual disk is useful for clustering virtual machines. For more
information about clustering, see High-Availability Configurations with VMware
GSX Server in the VMware GSX Server Administration Guide.
If you deselect this option, the virtual disk’s files start small and grow as needed,
but they can never grow larger than the size you set here.
You may also specify whether you want the virtual disk created as one large file
or split into a set of 2GB files. If you want to split the disk, select Split disk into
2GB files. You should split the virtual disk if it is stored on a FAT32 file system or
on a file system that cannot support files larger than 2GB, such as FAT16.
6. Accept the default filename and location for the virtual disk file, or change it if
you want to use a different name or location. To find a different folder, click
Browse.
If you want to specify a device node for your virtual disk, click Advanced.
On the advanced settings screen, you can also specify a disk mode. This is useful
in certain special-purpose configurations in which you want to exclude disks
from the snapshot. For more information on snapshots, see Taking Snapshots on
page 153. You can choose between a normal disk and an independent disk.
Normal disks are included in snapshots. This is the default setting for a new disk.
Independent disks are not included in snapshots. If you select Independent, you
must further select one of the following modes:
• Persistent — changes are immediately and permanently written to the disk.
• Nonpersistent — changes to the disk are discarded when you power off or
revert to the snapshot.
When you have set the filename and location you want to use and have made
any selections you want to make on the advanced settings screen, click Finish.