In virtualization environments, you’ll often run into different disk/image formats. Knowing the differences helps a lot when migrating, backing up, or importing VMs across platforms.
VMDK: VMware’s virtual disk format. Common in vSphere, Workstation, Fusion, etc. Basically acts like a virtual hard drive.
QCOW2: QEMU/KVM’s popular disk format. Supports snapshots, compression, and thin provisioning — very flexible.
OVA: A packaged virtual machine file, usually a single archive that contains an OVF descriptor plus the virtual disk (like VMDK). Convenient for migration and distribution.
OVF: Open Virtualization Format. It’s an XML-based descriptor file that defines VM hardware configuration, but doesn’t contain the actual disk data.
👉 Easy way to remember:
VMDK/QCOW2 = the disks
OVF = the instructions
OVA = the package (instructions + disk together)
