VMDK File Location

On ESXi hosts, virtual machine disk (VMDK) files are usually located under one of the /vmfs/volumes, perhaps on shared storage. Storage volumes are visible from the vSphere Client, in the inventory for hosts and clusters. Typical names are datastore1 and datastore2. To see a VMDK file, click Summary > Resources > Datastore, right-click Browse Datastore, and select a virtual machine.

On Workstation, VMDK files are stored in the same directory with virtual machine configuration (VMX) files, for example /path/to/disk on Linux or C:\My Documents\My Virtual Machines on Windows.

VMDK files store data representing a virtual machine’s hard disk drive. Almost the entire portion of a VMDK file is the virtual machine’s data, with a small portion allotted to overhead.