8.30. VBoxManage createmedium

Create a new medium.

Synopsis

VBoxManage createmedium [ disk | dvd | floppy ] <--filename=filename> [ --size=megabytes | --sizebyte=bytes ] [--diffparent= UUID | filename ] [--format= VDI | VMDK | VHD ] [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX,Formatted,RawDisk] --property name=value... --property-file name=/path/to/file/with/value...

Description

The VBoxManage createmedium command creates a new medium, such as a disk image file.

Note

For compatibility with earlier versions of Oracle VM VirtualBox, you can use the createvdi and createhd commands instead of the createmedium command.

disk | dvd | floppy

Specifies the media type. The default value is disk.

--filename=filename

Specifies the absolute path name to a file on the host file system.

--size=megabytes

Specifies the image capacity in one megabyte units.

--sizebyte=bytes

Specifies the image capacity in one byte units.

--diffparent=UUID | filename

Specifies the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) or absolute path name of a differencing image parent file on the host file system.

Use this file to share a base box disk image among VMs.

--format=VDI | VMDK | VHD

Specifies the file format of the output file. Valid formats are VDI, VMDK, and VHD. The default format is VDI.

--variant=Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX,Formatted,RawDisk

Specifies the file format variant for the target medium, which is a comma-separated list of variants. Following are the valid values:

  • Standard is the default disk image type, which has a dynamically allocated file size.

  • Fixed uses a disk image that has a fixed file size.

  • Split2G indicates that the disk image is split into 2GB segments. This value is valid for VMDK disk images only.

  • Stream optimizes the disk image for downloading. This value is valid for VMDK disk images only.

  • ESX is used for some VMWare products. This value is valid for VMDK disk images only.

  • Formatted formats the medium automatically. This value is valid for floppy images only.

  • RawDisk is used for creating a VMDK image which provides direct access to the hard disk on the host using its raw interface. This value is valid for VMDK disk images only. For detailed information about raw disk access, see Section 9.7, “Advanced Storage Configuration”.

Note that not all variant combinations are valid. Specifying incompatible variant values in the list will produce an error message.

--property name=value

Specifies any required file format dependent parameters in key=value form. Optional.

--property-file name =/path/to/file/with/value

Specifies any required file format dependent parameters in key=file/with/value form. The value is taken from the file. Optional.

Examples

The following command creates a new disk image file named disk01.vdi. The file size is 1024 megabytes. 

$ VBoxManage createmedium --filename disk01.vdi --size 1024

The following command creates a new floppy disk image file named floppy01.vdi. The file size is 1 megabyte. 

$ VBoxManage createmedium floppy --filename floppy01.img --size 1

The following command creates a raw disk image of an entire physical disk on a Linux host. 

$ VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename=/path/to/rawdisk.vmdk --variant=RawDisk --format=VMDK --property RawDrive=/dev/sda