Virtual Disk

What Is a Virtual Disk?

A virtual disk (VCD) is an image of a CD or DVD — a file that looks like a physical disk in Windows Explorer, but runs directly on the hard drive.

A virtual disk holds the entire contents of CD or DVD, and not just a single track. While a virtual disk can include music, it is most often used for video games, multimedia, and disk-based applications.

Because it operates on the hard drive, a virtual disk has much faster read times than a physical CD in a CD-ROM drive. The original physical disk does not have to be inserted in the CD-ROM drive during play.

To create a virtual disk, you’ll need a CD-DVD emulator like Virtual Drive, which lets you configure up to 23 “virtual drives” and make an unlimited number of virtual CDs.

Virtual Drive also lets you customize your virtual disks with documentation and expansion packs, or combine several volumes of a CD set in a single virtual disk. This is especially when virtual disks need to be shared over a network or where several media types are combined in a single application.

Benefits of Virtual Disks

Besides the fact that they can’t be scratched or broken, virtual disks offer the following advantages:

• Disk management for children
  Create shortcuts to favorite virtual disks; organize titles in Windows-like virtual library
• Mobility
  Transport a virtual disk on a USB drive, a laptop computer hard drive, or a USB key
• Enhanced playback
  Loading is almost instantaneous. Access rates are up to 200 times faster
• Multiple disk play
  Pre-load up to 23 virtual disks and run them simultaneously. Hot-swap between volumes of a multi-disk set
• Disk customization
  Custom virtual disks can include documentation, expansion packs, and product manuals
• Reduced demand on system resources
  Since it bypasses the CD-ROM drive, a virtual disk extends the charge of laptop computer batteries