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  • 1.  Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 01, 2015 04:09 AM

    We use vSphere 4.1 and we lack of disk space.

    Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way  ?



  • 2.  RE: Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 01, 2015 04:51 AM

    answer to your query is there in following KB

    VMware KB: Growing, thinning and shrinking virtual disks for VMware ESX and ESXi



  • 3.  RE: Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 01, 2015 05:17 AM

    Thank you.

    Does it need to install vmware converter agent to source VM guests to use VMware Converter for shrinking vmdk ?



  • 4.  RE: Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 01, 2015 06:29 AM

    If your guest needs the Converter Agent, it will be installed automatically on the guest system while you are going through the wizard



  • 5.  RE: Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 03, 2015 04:06 AM

    Thank you.

    What is the difference between thinning and shrinking ?

    Is it possible use SDelete , vmfktooks -K to shrink thick and thin disk ?



  • 6.  RE: Is it possible to shrink VM guests vmdk size in some way ?

    Posted Jun 03, 2015 06:13 AM

    Shrinking is when you create a 100gb disk and then you shrink it down to 90gb

    Thining is a type of virtual disk that occupies only as much space as the guest OS uses. for example:

    you create a 100gb thin disk but the guest OS only needs 30gb of it. so the total virtual disk size on the disk system is 30gb and not 100gb.

    yes with vmkfstools it's possible to do all:

    VMware KB: Cloning and converting virtual machine disks with vmkfstools