Local storage in a VM outside it's disk image?

[Gilbo]

Is it possible to add physically local storage to a VM that is seen by the virtualized OS as local, but isn't included in its disk image and is a separate filesystem? I know you can access physically local storage that isn't in the disk image using SMB or NFS, but is it possible in Xen, KVM/QEMU, or VMWare products without using networking protocols?

I could do with instances of OpenVZ using:

mount --bind /[SOURCE] /[TARGET]

But that can't insert storage into a VM image like the ones used by VMWare or KVM/QEMU (never used Xen myself). It works in OpenVZ because OpenVZ VMs don't use or need images, so I'm stuck.

Why don't I just use OpenVZ? I need to give a Windows VM access to storage on its physical Linux host. OpenVZ virtualizes the kernel not the host, so you can only run additional linux VMs (Windows is not an option). So I have to use KVM/QEMU, Xen, or VMWare all of which use some sort of image that ruins my mount --bind method.

Thanks. (And if I explained that idiotically I can try again.)

 

[sechs]

I thought that one could do this with VMware's shared folders function, but it appears that you use SMB access it.

I know that its possible to run a VMware VM off of an actual drive, rather than an image, but I've never done this myself.

 

[Mercutio]

I've tried playing with what you're suggesting and I'm stuck too.
And yes, you can run run a VM from a partition or an entire physical disk. I don't have any images set up that way, but with a whole physical disk you might actually be able to mount additional file systems on that disk...