Mac storage basics · Games and virtual machines
Can I keep my virtual machines on an external drive?
Short answer: Yes. Shut the VM down fully, move its bundle to a fast external SSD, and open it from there. Keep the drive connected while the VM runs.
Yes. A virtual machine is stored as a bundle of files, so it can live on any fast drive. Shut the virtual machine down completely (not suspended), move its bundle to the external drive in Finder, then open it from the new location in your virtualisation app (or add it back to the app's list).
Use an SSD — a virtual machine on a spinning disk feels slow — and keep the drive connected while the VM runs; unplugging it mid-session can corrupt the virtual disk. Why these bundles get so big: virtual machine size.