Is it possible to install Debian on an external HDD in Oracle VirtualBox?

Question

virtual box

There is a Macbook Air.

To learn, you need to install Debian.
I have a Macbook Air, I downloaded Oracle VirtualBox, can I do the following:
- Buy an external HDD
- Set up the virtual machine so that all the data is on the external drive

That is, I connected the disk, started the virtual machine and everything is OK, stopped the virtual machine, pulled out the disk, went for a walk .

Answer 1

Yes, because when you create you specify the size of the virtual hard disk, which is just a file with a certain extension, such as *.vdi, which you can use from anywhere.

Answer 2

Yes, of course you can.
A virtual machine is a collection of files.
I would advise you to place only the hard disk of the machine on hdd, and keep the rest of the files locally.
Then you only have a slow start and large read/write operations.
And things like snapshots, saving the state of the machine, etc. will be completed quickly.
Just remember that the snapshot will not be stored on an external hdd in this case.
I advise because I myself use such a scheme.
I have an SSD + HDD in my laptop.