A virtual disk stores the actual VM data and the VM can be configured to use a new disk, attach an existing disk, or map a SAN LUN. A LUN to a VMFS map is referred to as a Raw Device Mapping (RDM) that points to the raw LUN. In this case, the .vmdk file (.vmdk files will be discussed later in the file structure) doesn't store data, as the data is stored in the LUN, but it contains the mapping to the LUN disk information.
Virtual disks can be moved across different data stores connected to the host on which the VM runs. When a new disk is created, it can be provisioned in three different formats, depending on the requirements:
- Thick provision lazy zeroed: This is the default format; space on the datastore is allocated when the ...
