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Can you shrink a thin provisioned disk?

by Chase Collins

Can you shrink a thin provisioned disk?

Having thin provisioned disk is usually no longer a performance problem so it is a valid design choice even in production. A common issue with thin disks is that the size will grow when required, but never shrink. When you require the capacity only once you might want to get it back from the virtual machine.

How do I reduce provisioned size in VMware?

The only supported way to reduce the size of a disk by VMware is to use standalone converter and carry out a V2V and during the converter wizard you can specify the size of the disk. You will end up with a copy of the VM with the correct disk size and you can simply delete the original VM.

How do I change the provisioned size in VMware?

To change vmdk from Thin to Thick provisioning In vSphere Client, right-click the virtual machine in the inventory. Click Edit Settings to display the Virtual Machine Properties dialog box. Select the appropriate hard disk in the Hardware list.

Can we reduce disk size in VMware?

Workstation reduces the size of the disk’s files by the amount of disk space reclaimed in the wipe process. When a virtual machine is powered on, you shrink its virtual disks from the VMware Tools control panel. You cannot shrink virtual disks if a snapshot exists.

How do I shrink a thin VMDK?

What I am thinking of is:

  1. migrate the VM to another datstore, selecting “Thick Provisioned” as the target format.
  2. run sdelete within the guest OS to zero out unused blocks.
  3. migrate the VM back to the original datastore, selecting “Thin Provisioned” in the wizard.

How do I reclaim space from thin provisioned VMDK?

Knowledge Reclaim disk space from thin provisioned VMDK files in ESXi Server

  1. Step 1: Run below command to check information such as firmware revision, thin provisioning status, the VAAI filter and status for the datastore virtual machine is running:
  2. Step 2: “really” deleting space.
  3. Step 3: Run reclaim space in ESX.

Can you change thick provisioned to thin?

It’s possible to convert a thick provisioned disk to a thin one in a bunch of clicks thanks to the powerful vSphere Web Client, for VMware ESXi virtual machines. It’s also possible to perform the inverse operation. Before starting, VMware doesn’t allow to directly convert a thick provisioned disk to a thin one.

Can you expand a thick provisioned disk?

8 Replies. You right click on the VM, edit settings, and increase the size of the drive. In Windows, you open disk management and expand the volume. It doesn’t matter if the disk was thin provisioned or thick provisioned, the process for expanding it is the same.

How can I reduce my disk size?

To shrink a volume, follow these steps:

  1. First, clean up some of the crap.
  2. Open the Disk Management console.
  3. Right-click a volume.
  4. Choose Shrink Volume from the shortcut menu.
  5. Set the amount of disk space to release.
  6. Click the Shrink button to reduce the drive’s size.

How do I resize a VMware disk?

Procedure

  1. Select Window > Virtual Machine Library.
  2. Select a virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Library window and click Settings.
  3. In the Settings window, click the hard disk you want to resize.
  4. Use the Disk size slider to set the new size.

How do I resize a VMDK file?

How to Resize a VMs Virtual Disk (. VMDK)

  1. Shutdown the virtual machine.
  2. Right click on the virtual machine and select “Edit Settings”.
  3. On the “Hardware” tab, select the virtual disk you would like to resize and in the “Capacity” section enter the required size.

What is the difference between thick provisioning and thin provisioning?

In virtual storage, thick provisioning is a type of storage allocation in which the amount of storage capacity on a disk is pre-allocated on physical storage at the time the disk is created. Thin provisioning helps to avoid wasted physical capacity and can save businesses on up-front storage costs.

How to increase VMware hard disk size?

Open VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client and connect to VirtualCenter or the ESX host.

  • Right-click the virtual machine.
  • Click Edit Settings.
  • Select Virtual Disk.
  • Increase the size of the disk.
  • Follow the steps in Increasing the size of a disk partition (1004071) so the guest operating system is aware of the change in disk size.

    • What is VMware vStorage thin provisioning?

    VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning increases virtual machine ( VM) storage use through dynamic allocation and intelligent provisioning of physical storage capacity. The product operates at the virtual machine disk file ( VMDK) level, where data storage administrators can allocate VMDK files as thick or thin.

    How to increase a vmdk disk space?

    Download the Live CD iso

  • Select the default option and complete the startup.
  • GParted shows the size of current partitions (15.9 GB) and the unallocated space (20 GB).

    • How to shrink a vmdk?

    or click Start > Control Panel > VMware Tools.

  • Click the Shrink tab.
  • Select the drive you want to shrink.
  • then follow the onscreen instructions.