Export from Parallells to VMDK fo use on VirtualBox or Similar

Exporting from Parallels to VirtualBox

I've used Parallels 9 for about six months now to run a Windows 8 machine I use for development on my Mac (Macbook pro late 2011 OSX 10.9.2) and I love it. Previously I had been using VMWare Fusion 6 and I found the latter locked up all too often. Anyway I found myself wanting to export a machine I had created in Parallels to use it on another virtual host e.g. VirtualBox or XenServer. If you're not familiar with XenServer I heartily recommend it: bare bones Linux based virtual hosting.

1. Remove Parallels Tools from the virtual
2. Copy the Parallels virtual file to a new location and rename it (e.g. appending date) by way of a backup.
3. Right click the .pvm file and "Show Package Contents"
4. Right click the .hdd file and "Show Package Contents"
5. Copy the .hds file to another location.
6. Rename the .hds file to .hdd
7. Open VirtualBox and create a new VM, selecting "using existing hdd".

Note you can also use:

•  Disk2Vhd to convert the hard disk to VHD format 
• or VMWare converter to convert it to VMDK format

Disk Formats

I prefer the VMDK format for it's portability but also for the ability to split the file into smaller 2GB chunks. I find this works better with backup systems and also when moving the files around.