{"id":268,"date":"2011-12-18T19:09:38","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T18:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/?p=268"},"modified":"2011-12-19T12:55:03","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T11:55:03","slug":"converting-vmware-disks-preallocated-growable-2gb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/2011\/12\/18\/converting-vmware-disks-preallocated-growable-2gb\/","title":{"rendered":"Converting VMWare disks: preallocated? growable? 2GB?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you’ve got a VMWare system but when you created it you did so but specified the wrong disk type. For example I have a Win7 32bit VM specifically for iTunes (in my family we have iPhones and iPads). Unfortunately when I created this for some silly reason decided to set the 40GB drive to preallocated meaning I have a single 40GB file taking up far too much room on my limited SSD.<\/p>\n

I wanted to convert this down to a growable disk and was able to do so using the vmware-vdiskmanager tool:<\/p>\n

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<\/div><\/td>
phillips321@<\/span>Ubuntu-Desktop:\/<\/span>nfs\/<\/span>vm\/<\/span>iTunes$ vmware-vdiskmanager -h<\/span>
\nDiskname or some other argument is missing.
\nVMware Virtual Disk Manager - build 471780<\/span>.
\nUsage: vmware-vdiskmanager OPTIONS <<\/span>disk-name><\/span> |<\/span> <<\/span>mount-point><\/span>
\nOffline disk manipulation utility
\n  Operations, only one may be specified at a time:
\n     -c<\/span>                   : create disk.  Additional creation options must
\n                            be specified.  Only local<\/span> virtual disks can be
\n                            created.
\n     -d<\/span>                   : defragment the specified virtual disk. Only
\n                            local<\/span> virtual disks may be defragmented.
\n     -k<\/span>                   : shrink the specified virtual disk. Only local<\/span>
\n                            virtual disks may be shrunk.
\n     -n<\/span> <<\/span>source-disk><\/span>     : rename the specified virtual disk; need to
\n                            specify destination disk-name. Only local<\/span> virtual
\n                            disks may be renamed.
\n     -p<\/span>                   : prepare the mounted virtual disk specified by
\n                            the mount<\/span> point for<\/span> shrinking.
\n     -r<\/span> <<\/span>source-disk><\/span>     : convert the specified disk; need to specify
\n                            destination disk-type.  For local<\/span> destination disks
\n                            the disk type<\/span> must be specified.
\n     -x<\/span> <<\/span>new-capacity><\/span>    : expand the disk to the specified capacity. Only
\n                            local<\/span> virtual disks may be expanded.
\n     -R<\/span>                   : check a sparse virtual disk for<\/span> consistency and attempt
\n                            to repair any errors.
\n     -e<\/span>                   : check for<\/span> disk chain consistency.
\n     -D<\/span>                   : make<\/span> disk deletable.  This should only be used on disks
\n                            that have been copied from another product.
\n
\n  Other Options:
\n     -q<\/span>                   : do<\/span> not log messages
\n
\n  Additional options for<\/span> create and convert:
\n     -a<\/span> <<\/span>adapter><\/span>         : (<\/span>for<\/span> use with -c<\/span> only)<\/span> adapter type<\/span>
\n                            (<\/span>ide, buslogic, lsilogic)<\/span>. Pass lsilogic for<\/span> other adapter types.
\n     -s<\/span> <<\/span>size<\/span>><\/span>            : capacity of the virtual disk
\n     -t<\/span> <<\/span>disk-type><\/span>       : disk type<\/span> id<\/span>
\n
\n  Disk types:
\n      0<\/span>                   : single growable virtual disk
\n      1<\/span>                   : growable virtual disk split<\/span> in<\/span> 2GB files
\n      2<\/span>                   : preallocated virtual disk
\n      3<\/span>                   : preallocated virtual disk split<\/span> in<\/span> 2GB files
\n      4<\/span>                   : preallocated ESX-type virtual disk
\n      5<\/span>                   : compressed disk optimized for<\/span> streaming
\n      6<\/span>                   : thin provisioned virtual disk - ESX 3<\/span>.x and above
\n
\n     The capacity can be specified in<\/span> sectors, KB, MB or GB.
\n     The acceptable ranges:
\n                           ide adapter : [<\/span>1MB, 2040.0GB]<\/span>
\n                           scsi adapter: [<\/span>1MB, 2040.0GB]<\/span>
\n        ex 1<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -c<\/span> -s<\/span> 850MB -a<\/span> ide -t<\/span> 0<\/span> myIdeDisk.vmdk
\n        ex 2<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -d<\/span> myDisk.vmdk
\n        ex 3<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -r<\/span> sourceDisk.vmdk -t<\/span> 0<\/span> destinationDisk.vmdk
\n        ex 4<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -x<\/span> 36GB myDisk.vmdk
\n        ex 5<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -n<\/span> sourceName.vmdk destinationName.vmdk
\n        ex 6<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -r<\/span> sourceDisk.vmdk -t<\/span> 4<\/span> -h<\/span> esx-name.mycompany.com \\
\n              -u<\/span> username -f<\/span> passwordfile "[storage1]\/path\/to\/targetDisk.vmdk"<\/span>
\n        ex 7<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -k<\/span> myDisk.vmdk
\n        ex 8<\/span>: vmware-vdiskmanager -p<\/span> <<\/span>mount-point><\/span>
\n              (<\/span>A virtual disk first needs to be mounted at <<\/span>mount-point><\/span>)<\/span><\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>\n

I order to convert down i needed to use the -r flag along with the disk type that i wished to end with, in this case 0.<\/p>\n

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<\/div><\/td>
Disk types:
\n0<\/span>         : single growable virtual disk
\n1<\/span>         : growable virtual disk split<\/span> in<\/span> 2GB files
\n2<\/span>         : preallocated virtual disk
\n3<\/span>         : preallocated virtual disk split<\/span> in<\/span> 2GB files
\n4<\/span>         : preallocated ESX-type virtual disk
\n5<\/span>         : compressed disk optimized for<\/span> streaming
\n6<\/span>         : thin provisioned virtual disk - ESX 3<\/span>.x and above<\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>\n

A quick one-liner and my virtual disk was converted after about an hour.<\/p>\n

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<\/div><\/td>
phillips321@<\/span>Ubuntu-Desktop:\/<\/span>nfs\/<\/span>vm\/<\/span>iTunes$ vmware-vdiskmanager -r<\/span> iTunes_preallocated.vmdk -t<\/span> 0<\/span> iTunes_growable.vmdk
\nCreating disk 'iTunes_growable.vmdk'<\/span>
\n  Convert: 100<\/span>%<\/span> done.
\nVirtual disk conversion successful.
\nphillips321@<\/span>Ubuntu-Desktop:\/<\/span>nfs\/<\/span>vm\/<\/span>iTunes$<\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>\n

This tool will be great for those that need to split their disk into 2GB files in order to cope with various file system types, preallocate their disk to improve performance or set their disk to growable in order to decrease wasted disk space.<\/p>\n

If anyone knows what the option compressed disk optimized for streaming<\/em> means I would love to know as googling didn’t help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So you’ve got a VMWare system but when you created it you did so but specified the wrong disk type. For example I have a Win7 32bit VM specifically for iTunes (in my family we have iPhones and iPads). Unfortunately when I created this for some silly reason decided to set the 40GB drive to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,3,1],"tags":[104,10,106,5,107,105,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phillips321.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}