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When you configure an existing virtual disk, you can change its disk mode. You can also change the virtual disk a virtual machine uses or create a new virtual disk for the virtual machine.

ESX Server can use disks in four different modes.

• Persistent: Disks in persistent mode behave exactly like conventional disk drives on a computer. All writes to a disk in persistent mode are written out permanently to the disk as soon as the guest operating system writes the data.
• Nonpersistent: All changes to a disk in nonpersistent mode are discarded when a virtual machine session is powered off.
• Undoable: When you use undoable mode, you have the option later of keeping or discarding changes you have made during a working session when you power off the virtual machine. Until you decide, the changes are saved in a redo-log file.
• Append: Append mode also stores changes in a redo log. It continually adds changes to the redo log until you remove the redo-log file or commit the changes using the commit command in vmkfstools (see Using vmkfstools).

To configure the virtual machine's virtual disk, complete the following steps.

1. In the Hardware page, under Virtual Disk, click Edit. The Virtual Disk page appears.

   

   If the virtual disk is a physical disk on a LUN, the following window appears instead.

   

2. Do one of the following:
   • For an existing virtual disk that is not a physical disk on a LUN, you can change its disk mode. Under Disk Mode, click Persistent, Nonpersistent, Undoable or Append.
   • To select a different virtual disk, do the following.
   1. Choose the location of the virtual disk you want to use. In the VMFS Volume list, choose the volume on which the virtual disk is located.
   2. In the VMware Disk Image list, select the virtual disk you want. The size of the virtual disk appears in the Capacity field.
   3. Choose the disk mode. Under Disk Mode, click Persistent, Nonpersistent, Undoable or Append.
      • To create a new virtual disk for a virtual machine that does not have a physical disk on a LUN, do the following.
   4. Choose the location for the new virtual disk. In the VMFS Volume list, choose the volume on which to locate the virtual disk. The amount of free space is listed next to the volume name, so you know how large you can make the virtual disk.
   5. Give the virtual disk a name. In the VMware Disk Image list, select Other, then specify the disk name, making sure the file has a .dsk extension. Click OK to continue creating the disk.
   6. Specify the size of the virtual disk. In the Capacity field, specify the size of the virtual disk in MB.
   7. Choose the disk mode. Under Disk Mode, click Persistent, Nonpersistent, Undoable or Append.
      • If the virtual disk is a physical disk on a LUN, you can do the following.
   8. To select a different physical disk on a LUN to use, select it in the System LUN/Disk list.
   9. Change the virtual device node. Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list.

      Note: If the virtual disk is on SCSI controller 0:0, a warning appears, stating that changing the SCSI node may cause the virtual machine to boot improperly.

3. OK to save your changes and close the window.