How to Increase Virtual Disk Size in VirtualBox

Edited 1 week ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. VirtualBox is not only an extremely feature-rich, high-performance product for enterprise customers, but it is also the only commercial solution that is available as open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

One of the common tasks you may need to perform after creating a virtual machine is to increase its virtual disk size. This is useful if you think you will need more space than you initially allocated or if you have underestimated your initial disk space requirements. This detailed description will guide you through the steps required to effectively increase the virtual disk size using VirtualBox.

Understanding disk types

Before we dive into the process, it's important to understand what kind of disk files you're dealing with. VirtualBox primarily uses the VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) format, but it also supports VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk), VHD (Virtual Hard Disk), and several other virtual disk formats. While the process may be slightly different for each, the majority of this guide will focus on the VDI format because of its native compatibility and common use within VirtualBox.

Step 1: Prepare your virtual machine

Before making any changes to your virtual disk, ensure that the virtual machine you want to modify is turned off. Performing disk operations on a running virtual machine can corrupt or lose data. You can shut down your machine by going to the VirtualBox Manager, right-clicking on the desired virtual machine, and selecting 'Shut down' → 'Power off'. After ensuring that the virtual machine is turned off, you are ready for the next steps.

Step 2: Back up the existing virtual disk

Creating a backup of your existing virtual disk is an important safety measure. This ensures that if anything goes wrong during the disk resizing process, you will still have access to your original virtual machine state. To create a backup, simply navigate to the folder where your virtual disks are stored and make a copy of the disk file you plan to modify. It's as simple as copying and pasting the file to a safe location.

Step 3: Increase the size of the virtual disk

Now, it is time to increase the size of the virtual disk. This can be done using a command line tool called VBoxManage provided by VirtualBox. Here is the syntax to use VBoxManage to resize the virtual disk:

VBoxManage modifyhd "path/to/your/disk.vdi" --newSize_resize in megabytes

Let us understand this command:

• VBoxManage: This is the main command-line tool provided by VirtualBox for managing virtual machines and disks.
• modifyhd: This command is used to modify the properties of a virtual hard disk with VBoxManage.
• "path/to/your/disk.vdi": You must replace this with the actual path to the VDI file of the virtual disk you are trying to resize.
• --resize: This option specifies that you want to resize the disk.
• new_size_in_megabytes: This is the new desired size of the virtual disk in megabytes. For example, if you want to make the disk size 20GB, you would specify 20480.

Example: If your disk path is “/Users/example/VirtualBox VMs/MyVM/MyDisk.vdi” and you want to increase its size to 25GB, the command would look like this:

VBoxManage modifyhd "/Users/example/VirtualBox VMs/MyVM/MyDisk.vdi" --resize 25600

This command instructs VBoxManage to increase the size of "MyDisk.vdi" to 25600 MB (25 GB). Make sure you stop any unnecessary processes or applications on your host that may interfere with this process.

Step 4: Adjust the partition with GParted

After the disk size has been increased, the next step is to adjust the partitions to use this new space. Unfortunately, simply increasing the size of the virtual disk does not automatically increase the primary partition of your guest operating system. Therefore, you will need to use a partitioning tool. One of the most popular tools for this is GParted, a free partition editor. You can download the GParted Live CD, which is a bootable image that you can attach to your virtual machine. Here's how you can do it:

1. Download the GParted Live CD ISO image from GParted.org.
2. In VirtualBox, open the settings of the virtual machine you want to modify and go to the "Storage" tab.
3. Add a new optical drive if no optical drive is present, and attach the GParted Live CD ISO to this drive.
4. Start your virtual machine and boot from the GParted live CD.

After the GParted interface loads, you should see your disks and partitions. Here, you will need to resize the partition:

1. Right-click on the main partition and select "Resize/Move".
2. Adjust the slider to extend the partition to use unused space, or manually input the new size.
3. Make sure you apply the changes only to the existing partition without changing any other settings to avoid data loss.
4. Apply the changes and wait for the operation to complete.
5. Once completed, exit GParted and shut down the virtual machine.

After the partition is successfully resized, you can detach the GParted Live CD from the virtual machine's storage settings and boot into your operating system normally. Verify that the partition extension was successful by checking the available disk space.

Step 5: Expanding the file system

Some operating systems, such as some versions of Linux, may require you to extend the file system to take advantage of the newly available partition space. Here is a general guide on how to extend the file system for both Linux and Windows operating systems:

For Linux:

Once the partition is expanded, you may need to extend the file system. You can usually do this with the following command for the ext4 file system:

sudo resize2fs /dev/sdXN

Replace "/dev/sdXN" with the appropriate disk and partition label.

For Windows:

In Windows, you can extend a partition directly within the system without any additional command line tools:

1. Click the Start button, type "disk management" and press Enter.
2. Right-click the partition you want to extend and select "Extend Volume".
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.

This action will now allow your operating system to use the additional space added to the virtual disk.

Conclusion

Increasing the size of a virtual disk in VirtualBox is a beneficial capability that provides flexibility in effectively managing disk space as your virtual environment grows. Although the process may seem complicated with multiple steps, following this comprehensive guide should make progress quite easy. Always remember to take the necessary backups to prevent data loss and make sure you understand each step thoroughly, especially when dealing with disk partitions and file system adjustments, as these are the key areas where errors are most common. With proper care and caution, resizing a virtual disk can be a safe and highly beneficial process.

If for any reason you run into problems or need more specific instructions based on your particular operating system or disk configuration, check out the official VirtualBox documentation or the community forum for more customized help.

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