In the previous section, we discussed View Composer's operations, which are all about managing the OS side of what gets created for the virtual desktop machines. In this section, we are going to look at how to manage the non-OS disks or the persistent disk.

A persistent disk can be configured on a dedicated virtual hard disk per user, which will allow you to preserve user data and settings between recompose operations and more. There are a number of tasks that can be undertaken with regard to persistent disk management.

You are able to detach the virtual disk from a dedicated desktop. The main use case for this could be due to the end user leaving the company, and so the desktop is no longer needed but the data needs to be kept for compliance or audit reasons. It could also be because there is an issue with the desktop and you need to recreate it afresh without losing the user's data. Equally, you can attach an existing persistent disk to a virtual desktop machine in order to access the files and data stored on it. In the next sections, we are going to work through both attaching and detaching a persistent disk.