Question 1

What virtual machine disk formats does FreeVM HCI support?

Accepted Answer

FreeVM HCI natively supports the most widely used virtual machine disk formats — vmdk, qcow2, and img — so virtual machines can be migrated to a FreeVM HCI cluster without manual conversion. Additional formats including VHD, VHDX, OVA, OVF, and raw disk images are also supported. Import is non-destructive — original files are preserved on the source — and conversion happens in-place without requiring a separate migration tool.

Question 2

Can I migrate existing virtual machines to FreeVM HCI?

Accepted Answer

Yes. FreeVM HCI imports existing virtual machines directly from vmdk, qcow2, or img disk files with no conversion step. Point FreeVM at a source disk image, network share, or attached storage and the VM is registered and bootable on the cluster. Live migration, high availability, and cluster-wide storage policies are then available the moment the VM is online.

Question 3

What hypervisor does FreeVM HCI use?

Accepted Answer

FreeVM HCI is built on the Linux KVM hypervisor with hardware-accelerated virtualization (Intel VT-x and AMD-V). KVM is the standard hypervisor in the Linux kernel, providing mature support for Linux and Windows guest operating systems, paravirtualized and emulated devices, and the full range of vmdk, qcow2, and img disk image formats. FreeVM HCI is a Community Edition product built on top of this kernel-level virtualization.

Question 4

How many virtual machines can a FreeVM HCI cluster run?

Accepted Answer

A single FreeVM HCI cluster scales from three nodes to dozens, supporting thousands of concurrent virtual machines per cluster. Per-node capacity is limited only by the underlying hardware — CPU cores, RAM, and the distributed storage pool. Clusters can be stretched across sites for disaster recovery, and multiple clusters can be federated under a single control center for very large deployments.

Question 5

Is FreeVM HCI a free Community Edition?

Accepted Answer

Yes. FreeVM HCI Community Edition is free to download and use in production at no cost, with no subscription required and no artificial feature gating. It is not open source — FreeVM HCI is a proprietary community platform distributed as a free downloadable ISO. Commercial Standard and Professional Editions, certified hardware, and managed-cloud deployments are available under separate subscription plans, but the Community Edition software itself remains fully usable without them.

Question 6

What is HCI (hyper-converged infrastructure)?

Accepted Answer

HCI — hyper-converged infrastructure — is a data-center architecture that combines compute, storage, networking, and virtualization on the same physical nodes, replacing the traditional separation between servers and external storage arrays. Each node contributes its local disks to a cluster-wide distributed storage pool that every virtual machine can access. HCI simplifies deployment, scales linearly by adding nodes, and eliminates the cost and complexity of a separate SAN or NAS. FreeVM HCI delivers this architecture on open standards with KVM virtualization and broad vmdk, qcow2, and img disk format compatibility.

FreeVM Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

One Platform for Compute, Storage, and Virtualization

Unified Platform →

Broad Format Compatibility →

Open Standards, No Lock-in →

Built-in Security →