What is raw disk mapping?

Raw disk mapping is a technique used in virtualization technology to provide direct access to a physical storage device from a virtual machine. In raw disk mapping, the virtual machine accesses the physical disk directly without going through a virtual disk layer. This allows the virtual machine to have full control over the physical disk, including access to low-level features such as partition tables and boot records. Raw disk mapping is useful in scenarios where the virtual machine needs to access specialized storage devices such as RAID arrays, or when high-performance storage is required. However, raw disk mapping can be complex to set up and can pose a security risk if not properly configured.