To increase storage space, you can add a new virtual hard disk to a virtual machine. Workstation Pro supports up to four IDE devices, 60 SCSI devices, 120 SATA devices, and 256 NVMe virtual disks.

Virtual hard disks are stored as files on the host computer or on a network file server. A virtual IDE drive or SCSI drive can be stored on a physical IDE drive or on a physical SCSI drive.

As an alternative to adding a new virtual hard disk, you can expand the existing virtual hard disk. See Expand a Virtual Hard Disk.

Procedure

  1. Select the virtual machine and select VM > Settings.
  2. On the Hardware tab, click Add.
  3. In the New Hardware wizard, select Hard Disk.
  4. Select the disk type.
    Option Description
    IDE Create an IDE device. You can add up to four IDE devices to a virtual machine.
    SCSI Create a SCSI device. You can add up to 60 SCSI devices to a virtual machine.
    SATA Create a SATA device. You can add up to 120 SATA devices, four controllers, and 30 devices per controller.
    NVMe Create an NVMe device. You can add up to 256 NVMe devices, four controllers, and 64 devices per controller.
  5. Select Create a new virtual disk.
  6. Set the capacity for the new virtual hard disk.
    You can set a size between 0.001 GB and 8 TB for a virtual disk.
  7. Specify how to allocate the disk space.
    Option Description
    Allocate all disk space now Allocating all of the disk space when you create the virtual hard disk can enhance performance, but it requires all of the physical disk space to be available now. If you do not select this setting, the virtual disk starts small and grows as you add data to it.
    Store virtual disk as a single file Select this option if the virtual disk is stored on a file system that does not have a file size limitation.
    Split virtual disk into multiple files Select this option if the virtual disk is stored in a file system that has a file size limitation. Split extent size is decided based on the disk capacity. If the capacity is less than or equal to 127 GB, it creates a series of 32 virtual disk files, each with a size of 4064 MB. If the capacity is between 127 GB and 2032 GB, the virtual disk is divided into 32 extents. If the capacity is greater than or equal to 2032 GB, it utilizes 2032 GB extents to maximize efficiency and minimize the number of files.
  8. Accept the default filename and location, or browse to and select a different location.
  9. Click Finish to add the new virtual hard disk.
    The wizard creates the new virtual hard disk. The disk appears to the guest operating system as a new, blank hard disk.
  10. (Optional) To exclude the disk from snapshots, select Advanced > Independent for the mode and select a persistence option.
    Option Description
    Persistent Disks in persistent mode behave like conventional disks on a physical computer. All data written to a disk in persistent mode is written permanently to the disk.
    Nonpersistent Changes to disks in nonpersistent mode are discarded when you power off or reset the virtual machine. With nonpersistent mode, you always restart the virtual machine with a virtual disk in the same state. Changes to the disk are written to and read from a redo log file that is deleted when you power off or reset the virtual machine.
  11. Click OK or Save to save your changes.
  12. Use the guest operating system tools (such as the Windows Disk Management tool or the fdisk command in Linux) to partition and format the new drive.