A flat image allocates space ahead of time while a sparse images grows as the virtual machine writes to it.
The VMDK format includes multiple differing subformats, some of which store metadata in an external descriptor file, while others embed it with the main data in a single file. former Sun xVM (ancestor of VirtualBox).Third-party software that support VMDK include: All VMware virtualization products support VMDK this includes VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation Player, VMware Server, VMware Fusion, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, and all software-plus-service offerings that incorporate them.
