A few things I am confused about the disk size of my VM. I have my Windows VM vidisk imag on an NVME disk (2TB), which is mounted as an unassigned device. The disk has a folder with two files inside (vdisk and my GPU rom file).

 

Unraid Main UI: Size 2.05 TB, used 1.29 TB

Unraid VM UI: 1 vdisk 1 TB, capacity 1B, allocation 1T

Windows VM: Local disk 1.16 TB

 

So, it's a bit unclear how my VM setting of 1T in fact seems to have translated into 1.16 or even 1.29 TB space.

 

I'd now like to expand the VM disk. Should be easy by changing the capacity in the Unraid VM UI from 1T to 2T and then expanding the space in the disk manager. I am a bit worried though to do as this may exceed the maximum capacity (1T translated into 1.29 TB used space). Also, i am a bit worried as the GPU rom file is also taking some space.

What's the best way to set the vdisk file at the absolute maximum size available on the NVME disk? Don't want to lose any byte

If you are wanting Windows to use the whole NVME drive why don’t you pass the controller to the VM. You will get better performance that way.

 

your VBios can be stored anywhere.

 

you can also do this so you can boot native into windows for benchmarking or to run stuff that doesn’t like virtualisation.

 

 

Edited October 30, 20205 yr by gray squirrel
More info added

Thanks for your helpful reply. I've been thinking about this.

 

What has been holding me back is a few things: (1) If I were to later move from a 2TB to a 4TB NVME (or even to a smaller one), it may just be easier with a vdisk as I just need to copy the disk over, (2) I alrady have the vdisk and it seems quite painful to transit (though not impossible), (3) I have an Intel 760p, so not even sure it is possible to do, (4) There seems to be two views whether it indeed improves performance. Some say that there is no difference.

 

Any thoughts about my question why there are difference sizes displayed and how to size my vdisk to use the full disk?