Creating and Managing Virtual Machines - Getting Started with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization - page 74

Adding virtual disks
After we reviewed and confirmed the virtual machine settings in the previous Boot Op-
tions section, a new virtual machine's Guide Me window opens, and this will allow you to
add storage disks to the virtual machine.
To add a virtual hard disk to the virtual machine, perform the following steps:
1. Click on Configure Virtual Disks to add storage to the virtual machine.
2. Enter a value in the Size field of the disk with a description on what that disk is
used for in the Description field.
3. Select VirtIO as Interface .
VirtIO is highly recommended for better performance. RHEL 5 and later releases
ship VirtIO drivers in the kernel itself. For Windows workloads, you can attach the
virtual floppy drive while starting the operating system installation using the Run
Once option. The virtual floppy drive contains all the required VirtIO drivers that
detect the virtual hard drive by the operating system installer in order to proceed to
the Windows operating system installation for bootable disks. Post the Windows
operating system installation, you can attach guest tools to the virtual machine as a
CD-ROM device and install the required guest drivers for the network adapter. For
more detailed information using the VirtIO on Windows guest operating system,
please refer to the Installing VirtIO drivers during a Windows installation section
in this chapter.
4. Under the Allocation Policy field, select Preallocated .
The Preallocated option allots the entire size of the disk on the data domain at the
time of creation. This is highly recommended for server and disk I/O intensive
workloads. The creation of preallocated disks takes some time, and it highly de-
pends upon the size of your virtual hard disk. Thin provisioned disks are faster to
create and allow for storage overcommit. Thin provisioned disks are recommended
for desktop disks only.
5. For the Storage Domain dropdown, select the storage domain from which you
want to create and attach the virtual disk for your virtual machine.
6. The Wipe After Delete checkbox provides you with enhanced security for the de-
letion of sensitive material when the disk is deleted.
7. Check the Is Bootable option for your first virtual drive to install the operating
system on it. This will set the bootable flag on the disk. It's possible to add only