What is a primary characteristic of thin provisioned storage?

Thin provisioned storage is designed to optimize the use of storage resources by allocating physical disk space only as it is required by the virtual machines. This means that when a virtual machine is created with thin provisioning, it does not consume the full capacity of the disk immediately. Instead, the storage is allocated dynamically, allowing for more efficient use of available storage space, which can be especially beneficial in environments where storage capacity may be limited or where workloads can fluctuate significantly.

This approach not only maximizes storage efficiency by minimizing waste but also can simplify capacity management, as administrators do not need to pre-provision large amounts of storage that may not be used immediately. Thin provisioned storage is ideal for scenarios where workloads may start small and grow over time, enabling organizations to be more agile in their resource utilization and to reduce costs associated with over-provisioning.

The other options describe characteristics that do not align with thin provisioning: it does not allocate all disk space upfront, it does not necessarily require manual resizing, and it is fully compatible with virtual disks.