The virtual machine (VM) is a computer program requires storage to store its data. Virtual storage is a way to enhance the performance a VM by showing a single physical device or network-based storage as various types. The VM can access it without needing to know the hardware.

The management of virtual storage requires a careful balance between performance, capacity and cost. Admins need to decide if they wish to use only solid-state drives, or also hard-drive disks. They also need to decide on the kind of storage controllers they want and how many to put in place. To control costs, IT managers should think about storage reduction capabilities like deduplication and compression.

There are three kinds of virtual storage: physical disks, RAID groups and logical volume (LV). Physical disks and RAID groups divide physical capacity into smaller units that applications or servers interpret to be one storage device. A virtualization layer transforms I/O requests made by the server to the right physical disk.

The virtual storage https://duediligencedataroom.blog/sensitive-data-safely-stored-with-a-smartroom-vdr/ model reduces hardware cost by separating out the operating system from the physical devices and providing a single point of administration. It also allows for scaling up, as it automatically adjusts the physical capacity to meet the demands. Additionally, it permits administrators to complete a variety of tasks in a non-disruptive way such as moving data off of storage devices that are not being used. This is accomplished by the technique of data migration. In general, the granularity of the mapping determines how quickly meta-data can be updated, how much additional space is needed during migration and how quickly the previous location can be declared free.