Virtual Disk Interfaces VMware offers many options for virtual disk layout, encapsulated in library data structures described here. VMDK File LocationOn 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.Virtual Disk TypesThe following disk types are defined in the virtual disk library:Data Structures in Virtual Disk APIHere are important data structure objects with brief descriptions: Virtual Disk Transport MethodsVMware supports file-based or image-level backups of virtual machines hosted on an ESXi host with SAN or NAS storage. Virtual machines read data directly from a shared VMFS LUN, so backups are efficient and do not put significant load on production ESXi hosts or the virtual network.