While a microSD card works for transferring your VM, it is by no means a reliable way of running your VM.
Your SD card will most certainly die early.
Ask any Raspberry Pi owner that was forced to use SD cards on how well that works over time.
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 04, 2025 06:21 AM
From: lensv
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
Hi,
I might take the above back. After a few weeks, the performance and the response time for this VM is getting quite painful. A reboot makes it come alive again though. I'm still curious if this kind of usage might shorten the durability of the card?
/LS
Original Message:
Sent: May 19, 2025 05:00 AM
From: lensv
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
I have tested running a virtual Windows 11 machine now on a MicroSD card for a few days. It's not a speed monster, but it seems to work. I even copied it (not moved) from another location without issues. The question is if this kind of usage will wear out the memory cells prematurely?
Original Message:
Sent: May 14, 2025 09:14 AM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
The "copied vs moved" behavior for Windows has been around for years. Windows checks several items to determine if it's been moved to new hardware. Microsoft seems to do this to enforce licensing. Users of physical hardware encounter this if they need a motherboard replacement or want to transfer a license to a new PC. Marking a VM as "copied" is roughly equivalent to a motherboard swap.
Do let us know how the MicroSD research goes.
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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
Original Message:
Sent: May 14, 2025 03:56 AM
From: lensv
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
Thank you Techno!
Very interesting this copy vs. move thing. Is this an issue that has come up lately? I'm pretty sure that I have been able to copy machines to external drives before, without issues. Maybe it's got something to do with Windows 11 and its higher/different security approach?
Concerning MicroSD as storage... I think that it might be worth testing it anyway ;)
Btw... If someone's got an idea of how to search the forum for all threads where a specific user has participated - Please, feel free to share! :)
Original Message:
Sent: May 13, 2025 09:32 PM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
If you answer that question as "copied" instead of "Moved", internal identifiers in the VM configuration (including but not limited to BIOS UUID and network MAC addresses) are changed. Linux seems to cope with that OK, but those changes will drive Windows to think you've changed hardware and need reactivation.
I'd still be wary of running a VM on a MicroSD card even though it would be convenient to just insert a SD card in the MacBook. The performance of the best MicroSD cards seems to be around what you see with an HDD. However it's nowhere near what you'd get with an SSD.
Even if you can live with the reduced performance, I'd be concerned about wear on the flash due to write activity. Even a VM that "doesn't do much" still writes information to the virtual disks. SD cards aren't as robust as SSDs.
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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
Original Message:
Sent: May 13, 2025 04:12 AM
From: lensv
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
Thanks!
Is there a trick for how to search for threads where I have participated (I can only find posts that I have created)?
What happens if I choose copy instead of move, when I get that question?
As for the question about MicroSD... These cards come in lots of different performance classes and I believe/hope that the better ones should be good enough for running virtual machines (at least for those with lower performance requirements). And if they are, it would be very convenient to separate the virtual machines from the internal drive on a Macbook Pro without risking an external drive "coming loose" when you carry it around. :)
Original Message:
Sent: May 12, 2025 09:53 AM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
You should be able to use the search box found at the top of the Broadcom community window next to your user avatar in order to find older posts in the community.
If creating a new VM, save your VM to a folder on the external volume of your choice. For an existing VM, you can use the Finder to move it to the external volume/drive (note that you'll have to answer the "moved/copied" question with "moved" the next time you power on the VM).
If you do store VMs on an external drive, you should add the drive to the File > Scan for virtual machines... dialog so that you can more easily find them should the Virtual Machine Library gets reset.
As far as running a VM on a MicroSD drive, I'd be wary. The drive should be formatted as macOS Extended (HFS+) or APFS. Trying to run a VM on FAT or ExFAT formatted drives have been reported to cause Fusion to throw errors. That's because macOS's implementation of these two file system formats don't support all the file system operations that Fusion needs. Second, the performance of a VM running on a MicroSD card may not be acceptable (flash drives such as MicroSD typically don't have the performance of an SSD).
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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
Original Message:
Sent: May 12, 2025 05:07 AM
From: lensv
Subject: Fusion - VM on external drive
Hi!
First of all, can I find my old entries (pre-Broadcom) here somewhere/somehow?
I'm pretty sure that I've had a discussion over virtual machines on external drives in this community, but I can't find it now. Anyhow, If it's gone I'd like to refresh what I need to think of if I want to place my VM's outside the internal drive on a Macbook Pro. In addition I want to ask if anyone have tried to run VMs sucessfully on a MicroSD drive?
/LS