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Import and Export Disks

The File Transfer Manager moves disk images on and off a hypervisor. Open it from the File Transfer Manager card on the hypervisor's Actions tab by selecting Connect. The page has three tabs: All Transfers, Conversions, and Export.

Transfers stream directly between your workstation and the hypervisor; they do not proxy through the Gallium Console. Your workstation must be on the same Layer 3 network as the hypervisor, and a Chromium-based browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge is required.

Import a Disk​

The File Transfer Manager expects disk images in QCOW2 format, and the file picker filters to .qcow2 files. VMDK images are also accepted and are converted automatically during import; other formats must be converted manually before upload.

Select Import and choose the disk image to upload. Upload progress appears under All Transfers.

Once imported, the disk is available on the hypervisor and can be attached to a virtual machine. For the full workflow, including preparing a Windows source machine, see Importing a Virtual Machine.

Disk Conversion​

When you upload a VMDK image, the hypervisor converts it to QCOW2 automatically during import; no action is needed. The Conversions tab lists each disk being converted with its current status and refreshes automatically. Conversion time depends on the size of the image and the speed of the Storage Pool.

Manually Converting a Disk​

Disk images in formats the importer does not convert, such as VHDX, VDI, VHD, or raw, must be converted to QCOW2 with qemu-img before import. The tool is available in the qemu-utils package on most Linux distributions and in the Homebrew qemu package on macOS. For Windows, qemu-img can be downloaded from Cloudbase here.

For example, to convert a VHDX image:

qemu-img convert -p -f vhdx -O qcow2 disk.vhdx disk.qcow2

-f sets the source format, -O qcow2 sets the output format, and -p shows progress. Then import the resulting .qcow2 file.

Export a Disk​

The Export tab lists the hypervisor's disks with their sizes. Select Download on a disk to stream it to your workstation.