The utility allows to convert a physical disk to a virtual one in several ways.
Volume Conversion (Disk Volume)
When selecting the "Disk Volume" option, the program will create a new virtual disk file of the specified format and copy the data stored on the disk volume into it. After mounting such a virtual disk on it will be a complete copy of the data that was stored on the original physical volume.
In the case when the source disk uses a file system that is compatible with Windows (NTFS, FAT, ReFS), the utility copies only disk areas that are occupied by user files and file system data. This speeds up the conversion by reducing the amount of copied data, as well as saves disk space when using thin-provisioned (growable) container formats.
Disk Conversion (Physical Disk)
Information located on the physical disk and not on the logical volume is copied into the virtual disk container. The container will contain a disk partitioning table, all the volumes that exist on this physical disk, the boot area of the disk, etc.
When the volume is skipped, it will be visible on the virtual disk as unformatted, this volume in the corresponding area of the target disk is not initialized. Disc areas that are not allocated to logical drives are copied completely.
Only disk areas that contain useful data are copied, while unused areas of the disk are not copied.
Convert a physical machine to a virtual one
The V2V Converter utility implements the P2V script: copying the physical Windows machine to the virtual one.
Copying of a physical machine is possible in the basic MS Hyper-V machine and in the VMware ESXi virtual machine. Converting a physical machine is done by creating a new virtual machine with the same parameters.
When creating a copy of a machine, the main parameters are taken into account: number of processor cores, amount of RAM, number of network cards and monitors, disk controllers and number of disks of the machine. The machine's physical disks are in turn copied to the specified hypervisor and connected to the new virtual machine. All network cards are connected to the virtual network that the user specifies when converting (by default, the first one in the list).
Convert a physical machine to Microsoft Azure instance
StarWind V2V Converter allows converting physical disks and machines to Microsoft Azure instances.
Convert a physical machine to Amazon Web Services instance
StarWind V2V Converter allows converting physical disks and machines to Amazon Web Services instances.