Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space. Before we can use vmkfstools to shrink the vmdk file we must zero out any unused space on the thin provisioned disk. It is the safest method to reduce the virtual machine vmdk size but. Free up esxi local drive vmfs datastore space after deleting data in a thin provisioned windows vm duration. This has the sideeffect of inflating thinprovisioned disks, which can be expensive though perhaps possible to shortcircuit. You cant do this while a virtual machine is powered on or suspended. Im only talking about shrinking thinprovisioned disks. Null blocks are copied from source to destination resulting in a vmdk that is the same size, despite thin being chosen as the destination disk type. If you would like to read my basic vmware articles, they are listed here for your convenience. Sep 06, 2012 so i wanted to shrink my vmdk size as much as possible.
And the thin provisioned disk on vmware is not equal to a dynamic vhdx. Now you delete that file the os now reports 15 but your vmdk stays at 16. When attempting to thin a disk after either using vmware tools prepare to shrink option or. Power off the virtual machine, or disconnect the virtual disk you want to shrink. Oct 31, 2016 thin provisioned disks grow up with the time. Download sdelete onto the vm you want to shrink and run the following command, replacing. As far as i know the only way to make a thickprovisioned vmdk into a thinprovisioned one is by using vmware converter. Shrinking thin provisioned esxi disks miscellaneous knowledge. Not only do they allow overprovisioning, but with the prevalence of flash storage, performance degradation really isnt a concern like it used to be. You want to ensure that when you use storage vmotion you select same format as source if the vm is already thin, or thin provisioned format if running this against a.
In linux vms youll want to run this command, replacing path with the actual path of the storage. I am wanting to shrink a drive from 200 gb capacity down to 100 gb. Adding a thin provisioned disk to a vmware virtual machine. Lets say you have a base os install on a thin vmdk. Better would be to zero out only garbage, or copy just the live data to a new vmdk before export. Using sdelete and vmkfstools to reclaim thin vmdk space using thin provisioned virtual disks can provide many benefits. Still waiting on an automated or commandbased manner to shrink a thin vmdk for a guest. Below is an image which show what you will get in your shrink page of vmware tools if you are using thin provisioned disk.
Migrate the vm guest to another datastore and change the advanced configuration of the hard drive to thin provisioned. So first zero out the deleted space with sdelete and then use storage vmotion to convert the disk to thin. One more note before it comes up by my readers, vmware tools shrinking functionality is not support on thin provisioned disks. What is the best way to shrink a thin provisioned disk. Shrink windows server 2008 r2 vm disk and shrink vmdk. Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned disks rickard nobel. That is the reason behind me not using it in this post. How to reclaim disk space from a thin provisioned vmdk in esxi. I know i cannot shrink a thin provisioned drive and everything ive read says use the vm converter and it requires a downtime. Shrinking thin provisioned vmware disks in linux lets consider an example.
When you delete data on thinprovisioned disks, the physical size of the vmdk file for the disk remain the same as before deleting the data, thinprovisioned disks grow in one direction, but doesnt shrink automatically, and this is a big issue for vsphere admins. Reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin provisioning ive seen a number of posts on the vmtn forums as well as had discussions with folks regarding reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion so i thought it made sense to do a. Howto shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk 28. But, when you write zeros over the deleted files, virtualbox will see a large amount of zeroesempty space, in other wordsand be able to compact the disk. Possibly the biggest issue that we have with thin provisioning is running out of space on a device that is thin provisioned at the backend. Is there some way to set the file size during the convert. To shrink a vmdk we can use an esx command line tool vmkfstools, but first you. To finish the clean up, youll need to storage vmotion the vm to another datastore and back optionally. Apr 25, 2012 or will it also shrink thin provisioned vmdk on vms currently in this datastore.
How to shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk. I do not know a single system where you do not have at least 10gb of free space for os disks. Sep 24, 2016 for example, if you wrote 10gb of data to a thin provisioned disk and then deleted it, although from the vms perspective the space is now free, from the perspective of the physical disk that the thin provisioned vmdk is provisioned on the 10gb of data is still there. The method of changing disk provisioning type using cli involves copying current vmdk file to a new thin provisioned disk and removing old thick disk. Linux or freebsd guest become root su, then run vmwaretoolbox. Now make sure that the type of the disc is changed to thin provision. In most cases, for virtual machine hard disk shrink can be performed via v2v.
Feb 24, 2016 shrink the vmware virtual machine disk vmdk this is covered in step 2. Assuming i can find a way to do step 1 on a particular vm, do you know if this method works with any type of vm regardless of the guest os. There are various tools available to create zeroed blocks. This is an important concept to understand as it relates to the unmap command. In my case it was 8gb disk assigned and hence the value was 83886080. How to reclaim disk space from virtual machines with thin virtual disks in vmware vsphere. As a result, esx will still think the blocks are inuse. Shrink a vmware virtual machine disk vmdk virtualman. Reclaim wasted capacity of vmdk files arab it network. How to install apc cache in plesk add dhparam to plesk panel how to. How to shrink vmdk file of vm in vsphere virtualization blog.
Under the vhdx settings move the boot order to dvd first. After cleaning up the vm itself and running sdelete, its time to shrink the vmdk. For file storage, the underlying file system and the block. Zero free space using sdelete to shrink thin provisioned vmdk. But to start let me first explain what i mean when i say shrinking a vmdk. Jan 24, 2011 reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin provisioning ive seen a number of posts on the vmtn forums as well as had discussions with folks regarding reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion so i thought it made sense to do a quick writeup on how this process works. Will thin provisioned vms shrink automatically just as they would grow automatically. Linux or freebsd guest become root su, then run vmware toolbox. Nov 24, 2014 howto shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk posted by fgrehl on november 24, 2014 leave a comment 25 go to comments thin provisioned disks are a great feature to save capacity as you virtual machines filesystem will never use the full capacity. Mar 05, 20 shrinking a thick provisioned disk in vmware esxi 5. Sometimes you need to shrink a thin provisioned vmdk file after a lot of data has. Is it safe to reclaim storage from a thin provision datastore when there are critical vms running on high load in this datastore. Thin provisioning and thickprovisioning, as explained in details here.
How to shrink a vmware virtual machine and free up disk space. The zerofree utility is much quicker than the old dd ifdevzero method and it does not expand the thinprovisioned volume to full size, but it requires that the partition be unmounted. On windows guests we can use the sysinternals tool sdelete replace the drive. When you have some vms with thin provisioned disks, you may have noticed that these will continue to grow, and never shrink, even after cleaning out data from within the vm.
I have a virtual machine with a 10 gb thin provisioned disk. Move vmware esxi vm to new datastore preserve thinprovisioning. Oct 26, 2012 shrinking vmdk files with powercli to check out my full post check out my sitei think we can all agree that no matter how you look at it shrinking vmdk files is pretty much a pain in the ass. Free up esxi local drive vmfs datastore space after. Well, in thin provisioning, we expect the volume to contain only the size of data, and not as shown in the operating system itself. Best way to shrink the vmdk of a linux vmware guest. Identify disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk. You copy a 1gb file, now your os would report 16gb used and your vmdk grew also to 16gb. In the main vmware fusion window, select a virtual machine and click the refresh disk space icon to the right of its disk usage, at the bottom right corner of the window. You can also use the shrink disk from vmware tools to reclaim the delete space. This will just reduce the vmdks usage on the vmfs datastore not resize the provisioned size of a thin disk. Vmware esx 4 reclaiming thin provisioned disk unused space. Currently, vmware does not have automatic space reclamation, unless youre running a san which supports this and you have the necessary components installed, such as equallogics hitkit. Shrink a thinprovisioned vmdk if youve thinprovisioned a vmdk under esxi and need to reduce it for whatever reason, the official vmware documentation suggest to migrate the vm to another datastore using vmware converter which is not always practical, thankfully an alternative exists.
Change in size of ova when exported vmware communities. The page reclaim disk space from thin provisioned disks talks about how to do that. When you work with a thin disk provisionned vm, you are copying new files into a vm, then. You can verify the disk type from the virtual machine settings page.
Using thin provisioned virtual disks can provide many benefits. Storage vmotion to thin disk does not reclaim null blocks. Shrink a vmware virtual machine disk vmdk in 15 minutes in my previous experts exchange articles, most have featured basic and intermediate vmware and virtualisation topics. This article gives the steps to shrink a vmware vmdk virtual disk file from commandline with the vmware utility vmkfstools. Or should we move all the vms out or at least power them down before executing esxcli storage vmfs unmap l. Please note that i dont want to focus on reclaiming space from underlaying luns. Best way to shrink the vmdk of a linux vmware guest ars. To shrink a thin provisioned vmdk the guest filesystem has to be zeroed out.
How to zero free space to shrink a thin provisioned vmdk. Reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin provisioning. Please note this will just reduce the vmdks size on the datastore, it will not change the provisioned size of a thin disk. When you export an appliance from vmware, they use a very special vmdk format they. In linux, the dd tool can be used in a similar manner. This article gives the steps to convert a thick provisioned virtual hard drive vmdk to thin provisioned on esx 4 or newer. This post demonstrates various ways to identify the disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk. Reclaiming thin provisioned storage space with vmware. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that is. As far as its known this is an unsupported method and can defiantly corrupt or break you virtual disk. Size of vm created by qemuimg convert problem is this creates the. Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned vmdk files in esxi server. Convert a vmdk from thick to thin on esx bonus bits.
Nov 23, 2014 this post demonstrates various ways to identify the disk usage of a thin provisioned virtual disk. This guide shows how you can shrink the virtual disk files they have the extension. Move vmware esxi vm to new datastore preserve thin. Shrinking thinprovisioned vmware disks in linux lets consider an example. Vaai thin provisioning block reclaimunmap in action vmware. Once the blocks are written by vmfs with thin provisioning, even if the files are deleted in the guest operating system, these blocks are not automatically reclaimed without the vmware unmap process. Eric shows us how to make a hyperv virtual disk vhd vhdx smaller in this post. Reclaim space in a vm on thin or thick vmdks karims blog. When you work with a thin disk provisionned vm, you are copying new files into a vm, then deleting them, again and again, this process grow the thin disks over time.
If you have a virtual disk that grows as data is added, you can shrink it as described. Nov 07, 20 before we can use vmkfstools to shrink the vmdk file we must zero out any unused space on the thin provisioned disk. We got a request to reduce the allocated size of thick provisioned virtual machines hard disk. Jul 07, 2018 free up esxi local drive vmfs datastore space after deleting data in a thin provisioned windows vm duration. Adding a 2nd hard drive or solid state drive to a laptop by replacing the dvd or bluray drive duration. Single point of control to provision and apply policies to all of your kubernetes. Im only talking about shrinking thin provisioned disks. In this example we have a thin provisioned vmdk file with the size of 8 gb. You have to start smaller, or you have to use some imaging software to copy to a new virtual disk. Ive managed to holepunch a thin provisioned drive before after zeroing the free space. In the vmware case, if you create a thinprovisioned disk, its going to grow. After all, vmware studio does know quite a lot about the vm built. Reclaiming thin disk space with storage vmotion and sdelete. When you delete files, the deleted data is still stored on the disk so virtualbox cant automatically shrink the drive.
May 14, 2018 now make sure that the type of the disc is changed to thin provision. Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned vmdk files in esx by lunarg on december 12th 2014, at 12. Vmware vmdk shrink and storage thin provisioning 101. It doesnt matter if you move between vmfs3 or vmfs5, if you try to force the thin conversion, of if you try to converter to thick and then to thin seems that you need different block size to reclaim the zeroed blocks in a thin vmdk. Create another 250gb partition and move the data to it,then remove the 1tb disk, v2v the machine and reduce the size as you do or storage migrate the machine and change it to thin provisioning as you do 9this wont change the disk size, but will reduce the physical space used. To shrink a thinprovisioned vmdk the guest filesystem has to be zeroed out.
Vmware admins also need to keep an eye on capacity alerts, because thin provisioned vms grow over time. Here is a look at the provisioned and used space from a vmdk perspective. The vms are thin provisioned, but a year of io has caused the vmdks to expand on the datastore. Demystifying vmware thin provisioning searchstorage. I want to shrink a thin provisioned vmdk file, because in the affected virtual machine os there are many gbs free, but the thin provisioned disk is nearly the same size like a thick provisioned disk. Howto shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk posted by fgrehl on november 24, 2014 leave a comment 25 go to comments thin provisioned disks are a great feature to save capacity as you virtual machines filesystem will never use the full capacity.
I wanted to know if i used storage vmotion and moved this and changed it to a thick provisioned disk would i then be able to shrink the vmdk file. Some things should be simple, shrinking a thin provisioned virtual disk should be one of them, its not. In vmware fusion, first power down a virtual machine. Not only do they allow over provisioning, but with the prevalence of flash storage, performance degradation really isnt a concern like it used to be. Increasing the vmdk size can be done in gui but decreasing the size of vmdk is not allowed.
Dec 05, 2011 and for new vmfs5 datastores could be a big problem because they use a unified block size of 1mb. How to shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk thin provisioned disks are a great feature to save capacity as you virtual machines filesystem will never use the full capacity. How to shrink a vmdk using vmware converter techrepublic. If you delete files from within the vm wanting to gain the space back, it just dont work. Shrinking a thick provisioned disk in vmware esxi 5. Please note that, there may be more than one vmdk disk files when you unpack the virtual machine archive. To shrink a vmdk we can use an esx command line tool vmkfstools, but first you have to zero out any free space on your thin provisioned disk. Before we can shrink the vmware virtual machine disk vmdk, we need to shrink the os partition. Shrink vmdk file download vmdk linux software fuseqemu v. A simple way of doing this is by using a free utility called sdelete from sysinternals.
How to shrink a virtualbox virtual machine and free up. In this example i am using windows 2008 r2, which has a shrink function. Changing thick or thin provisioning for vmdk vmware hdd. In case of a unixoide os linux, freebsd, solaris, use dd. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that. Howto shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk vadims kb. Login to the virtual machine and shrink the os partition. If the disk is thin it wont be taking up the space anyway, if the disk is thick there are only 3 ways i know to do this.
I had downloaded a bunch of ova and iso files and had forgotten to move them over to a shared drive that i use for. Download sdelete onto the vm you want to shrink and run the following command, replacing drive. Dec 24, 2016 how to shrink a thin provisioned virtual disk vmdk thin provisioned disks are a great feature to save capacity as you virtual machines filesystem will never use the full capacity. A fresh install of ise results in around 45gb disk image for a thin provisioned disk but after. How to reclaim disk space from a thin provisioned vmdk in.
When you create a virtual machine there are two best practices to create the virtual harddrive. Over time virtual machine guests will grow in size if provisioned as a thin disk due to files being copied or log files being generated, once the files are unallocated deleted or moved the vmdk still reserves the location as used thus causing excessive white space. Allows you to shrink a thin provisioned disk while the virtual machine is up. Would it be possible to shrink the disk first in windows down to 100gb then shrink the vmdk to 100gb also.
In linux you should be able to use tools like dd or similar. How can i reduce thin provisioned allocation of vmdk that is vmfs6. Regarding the vmware kb2004155, a svmotion process to another datastore does not shrink the vmdk file. Reclaiming disk space with storage vmotion and thin. Virtual machine preparation linux linux does not zero deleted. Currently, vmware does not have automatic space reclamation. While thin provisioning adds storage as needed, it does not work in reverse, removing unneeded storage for the vm. There are a few tools available to do this on windows and linuxhosts. Vaai thin provisioning block reclaimunmap in action.
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