linux

How to convert VirtualBox vdi to KVM qcow2

noraj (Alexandre ZANNI)
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VBoxManage can't directly convert vdi to qcow2, so there is two options :

  • With VBoxManage convert vdi to raw and with qemu-img convert raw to qcow2
  • With qemu-img convert vdi to qcow2

Notes : vdi are compressed and raw images are not so you will need to leave enough disk space for entire uncompressed disk. qcow2 images are compressed too and automaticaly sized.

Method with intermediate#

  1. Make sure the VirtualBox VM is shutdown
  2. Convert the vdi to a raw disk images
1
VBoxManage clonehd --format raw vm.vdi vm.raw
  1. Convert the raw to qcow2 disk images
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qemu-img convert -f raw vm.raw -O qcow2 vm.qcow2

Direct method#

qemu-img support VDI, so it can be convert directly:

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qemu-img convert -f vdi vm.vdi -O qcow2 vm.qcow2
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