{"id":11782,"date":"2011-12-15T12:40:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T12:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/virtual-hard-disk\/"},"modified":"2017-01-11T14:51:04","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T14:51:04","slug":"virtual-hard-disk","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Hard Disk"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_virtual_hard_disk_mean\">What Does Virtual Hard Disk Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A virtual hard disk (VHD) is a type of disk drive that has similar functionalities as a typical hard drive but is accessed, managed and installed on a virtual machine infrastructure.\n<\/p>\n<p>VHD is considered a file format and application, and is designed primarily to be used by virtual machines. It often contains the same hard drive sectors found on a physical hard drive, such as disk partitions and a file system.\n<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_virtual_hard_disk\">Techopedia Explains Virtual Hard Disk<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A virtual hard disk operates like a conventional physical hard disk, having all the capabilities to create disk sectors, files and folders, run an operating system and install and execute other applications. A virtual hard drive is created on a physical hard drive, but has a logical distribution of its own. In turn, it can host many different virtual hard drives simultaneously, depending on its size. Each of the created virtual hard disk is created as a tightly coupled drive and doesn\u2019t overwrite or interfere with the operation of other VHDs.\n<\/p>\n<p>Virtual hard disks can have a fixed or flexible disk size, which is managed and controlled by the virtualization manager or the parent operating system. Virtual hard disks were first conceived by Connectix Inc., which was purchased by Microsoft Co. to be used in their virtual PC as a virtual machine application for the Windows OS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Virtual Hard Disk Mean? A virtual hard disk (VHD) is a type of disk drive that has similar functionalities as a typical hard drive but is accessed, managed and installed on a virtual machine infrastructure. VHD is considered a file format and application, and is designed primarily to be used by virtual machines. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[215,224,223],"class_list":["post-11782","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-cloud-computing","definitioncat-containers-virtualization","definitioncat-storage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.7 (Yoast SEO v23.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD)? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Virtual Hard Disk and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Virtual Hard Disk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Virtual Hard Disk and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-11T14:51:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Virtual Hard Disk\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-15T12:40:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-11T14:51:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\"},\"wordCount\":233,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/26811\/virtual-hard-disk-vhd\",\"name\":\"What is a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD)? 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