VMware-Forum

Hallo,

kann mir jemand erklären warum bei meinem esx 2.5 Server beim erstellen einer virtuellen Platte als default immer vmdk vorgeschlagen wird.
Ich kenne vmdk´s nur von vmWorkstation & GSX, bei ESX dachte ich muss es immer ein DSK File sein.
Ich benutzte auf dem ESX 2.5 im Moment DSK Files, ist es besser vmdk´s zu verwenden und wenn ja wo liegt der Vorteil?

Lastly, an interesting post came in this week from Michael in
Germany, about a change in ESX 2.5 which should interest ESX users. It
appears as if Vmware have dropped the convention of using DSK for
Monolithic files, and VMDK for COW files. All virtual disks if create
new on a VMFS partition have a VMDK extension. DSK file from ESX2.1 will
still function. A VMDK on VMimage partition still consumes just the
occupied disk space consumed by data, whereas a VMDK file on VMFS
partition is monolithic and occupies ALL the disk space allocated to it.

So, its just a change in a .EXTension. Probably because for a while,
WS/GSX users have had a choice over cow or monolithic - when they
defined the VM, and no "special" extensions exist for them - its just a
vmdk file. Personally, I preferred the convention - it offered an easy
way to id the type of file you were dealing with..But this is what
VMware say on page 63 of the PDF guide:

"Note: ESX Server version 2.5 uses a default file name extension of
.vmdk for virtual disks. Virtual machines created under ESX Server 2.1
and earlier creates disk files with a .dsk extension."