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Hard Disk Drive Management Parameters

This group of parameters is used to add and configure virtual hard disks in a virtual machine.

Syntax

prlctl set ID|VM_name --device-add hdd [--image name]

           [--type expand|plain][--size number][--split]

           [--iface ide|scsi][--position number]

           [--enable|--disable]

  

prlctl set ID|VM_name --device-add hdd --device name

           [--iface ide|scsi][--position number]

           [--enable|--disable]

  

prlctl set ID|VM_name --device-set hddN [--image name]

           [--type expand|plain][--size number][--split]

           [--iface ide|scsi][--position number]

           [--enable|--disable]

  

prlctl set ID|VM_name --device-set hddN --device name

           [--iface ide|scsi][--position number]

           [--enable|--disable]

Parameters

Name

Description

ID

The virtual machine ID.

VM_name

The virtual machine name.

--device-add

Adds a virtual hard disk drive to the virtual machine.

You can connect up to four IDE devices and up to seven SCSI devices to a virtual machine. This includes hard disks and optical disk drives.

--device-set

Modifies the parameters of an existing virtual hard disk.

hdd

Specifies the type of the virtual device to add to the virtual machine (in this instance, a virtual hard disk).

hddN

The name of the virtual hard disk to modify. Virtual hard disks are named using the hddN format where N is the drive index number starting from 0 (e.g. hdd0, hdd1). To obtain the list of disk names, use the prlctl list command with the --info option.

--image name

This options is used to create a virtual hard disk using an image file. You have an option of creating a new image file or to use an existing image.

  • To use an existing image file, specify its name and path using the name parameter.
  • To create a new image file, omit the --image parameter. New image files are created in the virtual machine directory and are automatically named using the harddiskN.hdd format, where N is the disk index number (e.g. harddisk0.hdd, harddisk1.hdd).

--device name

This option is used to create a virtual hard disk based on a boot camp partition (Mac hosts). The name parameter must contain the boot camp partition name.

 

 

--type expand|plain

For image file based virtual disk drives, specified the disk type:

  • expand -- expanding disk. The image file is small initially and grows in size as you add data to it. This is the default virtual disk type.
  • plain -- plain disk. The image file has a fixed size from the moment it is created (i.e the space is allocated for the drive fully). Plain disks perform faster than expanding disks.

--size number

The size of the virtual hard disk, in megabytes. The default size is 32,000 MB.

--split

Splits the hard disk image file into 2 GB pieces. You should split a virtual disk if it is stored on a file system that cannot support files larger than 2 GB (e.g. FAT16).

--iface ide|scsi

Interface type:

  • ide --  IDE drive.
  • scsi -  SCSI drive (default).

--position number

The SCSI or IDE device identifier to be used for the virtual disk. The allowed ID ranges are the following:

  • for IDE devices: 0:0, 0:1, 1:0, 1:1;
  • for SCSI device: 0:0, 1:0, 2:0, 3:0, 4:0, 5:0, 6:0.

You can use one of the following formats for specifying IDs: ID:bus, ID-bus, ID. For example, if you specify 3:0 (or 3-0 or 3) as number for a SCSI drive, the guest OS will see the drive as having ID 3 on SCSI bus 0.

--enable

Enables the specified virtual disk drive. All newly added disk drives are enabled by default (provided the --disable option is omitted).

--disable

Disables the specified virtual disk drive. The disk drive itself is not removed from the virtual machine configuration.

Links

General Syntax, Virtual Device Management, Legend

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