To merge and reduce the size for those vmdk files, a piece of freeware VMware Convertor does really help! By converting a new VM from existing VM, multiple .vmdk files have been merged and reduced in size in the destination folder. Now, it becomes one single .vmdk file with smaller size.
Before the conversion, the guest VM must be shutdown completely. After all, you will get a .vmx and a .vmdk file in a smaller size.
Furthermore, you may want to actually shrink the disk within Guest VM. This is possible if you have installed latest version of VMware tools inside Guest VM.
Shrinking a disk is a two-step process:
In the first step, called wiping, VMware Tools reclaims all unused portions of disk partitions (such as deleted files) and prepares them for shrinking. Wiping takes place in the guest operating system.
The second step is the shrinking process itself, which takes place on the host. Workstation reduces the size of the disk's files by the amount of disk space reclaimed in the wipe process.
For the first step, follow the below instructions inside running target Guest VM:
1. Launch the vmware-toolbox.
Windows guest — double-click the VMware Tools icon in the system tray, or choose Start > Settings > Control Panel, then double-click VMware Tools.
Linux or FreeBSD guest — become root (su -), then run vmware-toolbox.
2. Click the Shrink tab.
3. Select the virtual disks you want to shrink, then click Prepare to Shrink.
A dialog box tracks the progress of the wiping process.
Note: If you deselect some partitions, the whole disk is still shrunk. However, those partitions are not wiped for shrinking, and the shrink process does not reduce the size of the virtual disk as much as it could with all partitions selected.
4. Click Yes when VMware Tools finishes wiping the selected disk partitions.
A dialog box tracks the progress of the shrinking process. Shrinking disks may take considerable time.
5. Click OK to finish.
For the second step, you are ready to issue a command at the terminal on Host machine:
Assuming Host machine is running Windows, you can issue a command like this (change target vmdk path accordingly).
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -k "\*destination*\target.vmdk"
Reference: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_shrink.html
Furthermore, you may want to actually shrink the disk within Guest VM. This is possible if you have installed latest version of VMware tools inside Guest VM.
Shrinking a disk is a two-step process:
In the first step, called wiping, VMware Tools reclaims all unused portions of disk partitions (such as deleted files) and prepares them for shrinking. Wiping takes place in the guest operating system.
The second step is the shrinking process itself, which takes place on the host. Workstation reduces the size of the disk's files by the amount of disk space reclaimed in the wipe process.
For the first step, follow the below instructions inside running target Guest VM:
1. Launch the vmware-toolbox.
Windows guest — double-click the VMware Tools icon in the system tray, or choose Start > Settings > Control Panel, then double-click VMware Tools.
Linux or FreeBSD guest — become root (su -), then run vmware-toolbox.
2. Click the Shrink tab.
3. Select the virtual disks you want to shrink, then click Prepare to Shrink.
A dialog box tracks the progress of the wiping process.
Note: If you deselect some partitions, the whole disk is still shrunk. However, those partitions are not wiped for shrinking, and the shrink process does not reduce the size of the virtual disk as much as it could with all partitions selected.
4. Click Yes when VMware Tools finishes wiping the selected disk partitions.
A dialog box tracks the progress of the shrinking process. Shrinking disks may take considerable time.
5. Click OK to finish.
For the second step, you are ready to issue a command at the terminal on Host machine:
Assuming Host machine is running Windows, you can issue a command like this (change target vmdk path accordingly).
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -k "\*destination*\target.vmdk"
Reference: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_shrink.html
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