Tech Line
Supersizing Virtual SCSI Drives
Here's how to increase the number of available virtual SCSI drives with VMware Workstation 5.0.
Chris: I've heard that it's possible to add more virtual
SCSI disks to VMware Workstation 5.0 virtual machines by editing the VM's
configuration file. For various classes that I teach, I like performing
demonstrations of how to setup software RAID, but would like to assign
more than seven virtual SCSI disks to a VM, which is the limitation through
the GUI. Is this possible?
— Andy
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Andy, the rumors that you have heard are correct. VMware
Workstation configuration (.vmx) files can be edited in Notepad and thus
allow you to extend their capabilities beyond what is possible by configuring
VMs using the VMware Workstation user interface. While you are limited
to a single virtual SCSI adapter and thus a single SCSI bus with the GUI
configuration, you can add a second virtual adapter which can include
seven additional drives by manipulating a VM's configuration file.
Here's a procedure for adding four additional SCSI disks to a second
virtual SCSI bus:
- First create the virtual disk files using the command line tool vmware-vdiskmanager.exe.
To do this, open the command prompt and navigate to the VMware Workstation
installation folder (default location = "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware
Workstation.") Note that to see the full syntax and examples of
using this command, you can run vmware-vdiskmanager.exe
/?.
- To create the first disk, run the command:
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -c -s -a buslogic
-t 0
For example, to create a 2GB virtual disk file named SCSI1-1.vmdk that
is stored in the G:\VMs\W2K3 folder, you would run:
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -c -s 2Gb -a buslogic -t 0
G:\VMs\W2K3\SCSI1-1.vmdk
- Repeat step 2 to create additional disks. For example, to create
a disk named SCSI1-2.vmdk, you would run:
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -c -s 2Gb -a buslogic -t 0
G:\VMs\W2K3\SCSI1-2.vmdk
- Once the disks are created, you will now need to edit the VM's configuration
file so that the new disks will be recognized. To open the VM's configuration
file, first make sure that the VM is not open in VMware Workstation.
Then navigate to the VM's folder using Windows Explorer. Once you locate
the VM's configuration file (the one with the .vmx extension), right-click
on the file, select Open With, and then click Notepad. (Note that if
Notepad is not displayed, you will have to click the Choose Program
option and then select Notepad at that point.)
- Once the VM's file is opened in Notepad: add the following lines
to the beginning of the file:
scsi1.present = "TRUE"
scsi1.virtualDev = "buslogic"
Note that "buslogic" was added since the disks were
created for the buslogic virtual SCSI adapter. You could have created
virtual disks for an LSILogic SCSI virtual SCSI adapter by specifying
"lsilogic" after the -a parameter when the virtual disks were
created using vmware-vdiskmanager.exe. The key here is for the references
between the virtual disk files and the scsi1.virtualDev reference to
point to the same virtual adapter type.
- Assuming that you added four virtual SCSI disks, you would add the
following lines to the end of the file:
scsi1:1.present = "TRUE"
scsi1:1.fileName = "SCSI1-1.vmdk"
scsi1:2.present = "TRUE"
scsi1:2.fileName = "SCSI1-2.vmdk"
scsi1:3.present = "TRUE"
scsi1:3.fileName = "SCSI1-3.vmdk"
scsi1:4.present = "TRUE"
scsi1:4.fileName = "SCSI1-4.vmdk"
At this point, your VM is ready to use the new SCSI disks. Just save
the edited .vmx file in Notepad, power up the VM using VMware Workstation,
and enjoy!
Getting anything for free always seems to bring out the miser in me.
Even if it's just virtual hard disks, I'll take them!