VirtualBox: how to move a vm to another disk

It has passed long time, since I learned to sotre vm disks (vdi,vhd,…) among several disks (physical disks, nas, usb, network, …), for performance issues.

It happens also to move VMs from one disk to another (brabd new 3TB hard disk 🙂 ) or pc-to-pc.

This post in Virtual Box forum is really usefull: How to move a VM to another disk (same machine), this post has helpfull step-by-step instruction.

Here I copy them briefly, but remember to read full post

1.) Copy your “VirtualBox VMs” folder from its current location which is “C:\” to any location you desire. (Remember,Do not delete yet. Only copy,just incase.)

2.) Change your “Default Machine Folder” to the new location.

3.) Now go back to your VirtualBox Manager. Right click on your Guests and click “Remove”. It’ll pop up with 3 options, IMPORTANT: Click on “Remove only”. (Remember,Do not delete anything yet).

4.) Now close your VirtualBox Manager. And then Right click on toolbar “Start Task Manager”. Inside Task Manager, go to “Processes”…. Check to see if “VBoxSVC.exe” is still running…. If yes, click on it and “End Process” …If no,it has timed out and you’re good to go. F5 to refresh your desktop.

5.) Open your VirtualBox Manager again. Go to “Machine,Add”. Your new location should be there automatically. If not, just locate,Then use the add feature to add your guests back one at a time. (select the *.vbox file).

Hope it helps

Next step: and what about a vdi with snapshots?

Technorati tags: VirtualBox

Virtualization: multi-cpu vs multi-core vs …

Another hint on vm performance, cpu settings, multi-cpu vs multi-core vs multi-cpu-core 😉

source: vSphere 4.1: Multicore Virtual CPUs

Virtualization performance best practices: VMware vSphere …

While I was looking for infos about vm settings (cpu multi core, multi cpu, …) I found this helpfull document “Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere™ 5.0“.
Well it wasn’t very appropriate to my need, but it helped empowering my knowledge  🙂 because best practices are valid in variuos scenarios. 😉

source: Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere™ 5.0

Change hard disk UUID of Virtual Disk

Since I was used to copy&paste VHD file in VirtualPC, to clone virtual machine, I first tryed same procedure in VirtualBox, because I need to configure 2-3 vm in very-similar configuration.
Well, VirtualBox manage hard disk files differently than VirtualPC (attach & detach… ), and it doesn’t permit to attach “same” vdi file more than once … “same” vdi file.
VirtualBox knows vdi files via UUID, not filename.
Shortly, you need to change that UUID in you vdi file, with this (shell) command:

VBoxManage internalcommands setvdiuuid <full_path_to_vdi_file>

Well, you can work smartly and save your time, if you can clone disk in advance, via this (shell) command:

VBoxManage clonevdi <full_path_to_original_vdi_file> <full_path_to_brand_new_vdi_file>

source: VirtualBox: How to change the UUID of Virtual Disk (vdi)

Technorati tags: VirtualBox

How to resize VirtualBox hard disk partition

readRunning some tests on a VirtualBox machine, my virtual disk run out of space … 30GB fired in such few minutes ???
Well, I needed a 15GB more, but local IT store was too expensive 😀
Well, I decided to resize virtual hd instead of buying a brand new hd, because I just needed a 50GB hd 🙂

Here there is a pretty good guide, i run througt, saved my data and moved to a “brand new” 50GB hd 😉
read: How to resize a VirtualBox disk partition

Technorati tags: VirtualBox