A
logical disk,
logical volume or
virtual disk (
VD or
vdisk for short) is a
virtual device that provides an area of usable storage capacity on one or more physical
disk drive(s) in a computer system. The disk is described as
logical or
virtual because it does not actually exist as a single physical entity in its own right. The goal of the logical disk is to provide computer software with what seems a contiguous storage area, sparing them the burden of dealing with the intricacies of storing files on multiple physical units. Most modern
operating systems provide some form of
logical volume management.