Question

What type of disk enables you to preserve an existing virtual disk image file in its original state, while mounting it in an OS and even modifying its contents?

Answer 1

A differencing disk is a virtual disk that enables the preservation of the original virtual disk image file while allowing modifications by keeping the original image read-only and writing changes to a separate disk.

Step-by-step explanation:

The type of disk that allows you to preserve an existing virtual disk image file in its original state while being able to mount it in an Operating System (OS) and modify its contents is called a snapshot or writeable snapshot, commonly implemented as a differencing disk. A differencing disk is a virtual hard disk (VHD) that stores changes made to another virtual disk or to the guest operating system. It works by keeping the original disk image file read-only, and any changes are written to the differencing disk. This strategy conserves disk space and allows for easy reversion to the original disk state if necessary, which can be very useful in testing and development scenarios where maintaining the original disk state is important.