[OpenIndiana-discuss] zpool errors a bit confusing

[Andrew Gabriel]

On 06/04/2014 15:50, Harry Putnam wrote:
> One unexpected result is that vbox seems to create the same named
> discs under the normal directory for your vm discs....but they never
> grow beyond 4mb.  All the while the same named discs out on the ext
> drive may grow to whatever size was set when created.
> So, end result is, you have disc-10 under your vm disc directory and
> disc-10 out on the external.... the only one growing is on the
> external.  This all seems to work seamlessly with the oi OS.
>
> Must be something like a place marker that vbox finds necessary to
> create.

If they are VMDK files, these can contain a redirection to one or more 
VMDK extent files. The first 4kB (less the magic header) contains the 
VMDK descriptor file in plain text (NUL padded).

dd if=xxx.vmdk count=7 skip=1

and look under the Extent description section, which will be pointing to 
the real file(s). (In the simple case of a single VMDK file, it points 
to itself.)

-- 
Andrew