Vista - Hard Disk Size Discrepancy

Hello all, I have a VM with a C disk of a about 4Gb. but the .vhd file in the
host was about 7Gb. so I defragmented inside the VM and shuted it down to see
if it improves, now the file is 7.5Gb... what am I doing wrong?

Crimsom wrote:
You probably forgot to compact the VHD file via the VPC console.

--
Robert Riebisch
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Please reply to the Newsgroup ONLY!

In article <34B938B1-8E41-4E92-83EC-C191058ED1B5@xxxxxx>
=?Utf-8?B?Q3JpbXNvbQ==?= <Crimsom@xxxxxx> wrote:Defraging the VM does not reduce the size of the VHD file on the host.

Hi Robert, thank you for your answer. I've just compacted it with the Wizard
and it maintains the same size.
If I check "Compress Volume to save disk space" in the host it goes to
6.5Gb, but I am not sure if it will affect the performance and still, it is
far from the 4Gb of used space.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:48:10 -0800, Crimsom
<Crimsom@xxxxxx> wrote:
To decrease size of VHD:
1) Delete any unwanted files in the guest and empty recycler.

2) Run the Windows defragmenting tool in the guest

3) Run VPC Precompactor in guest (ISO exists in VMAdditions folder)

4) Shut down guest completely and commit any undo disk

5) Use the VPC console "Virtual disk wizard" to select and compact the
VHD disk.

Now you have shrunk the file on the host side as much as possible.
You might now want to run the Contig program on the VHD to defrag this
single file into one chunk to speed up performance.
AFAIK Contig is a tool made by one of the Microsoft developers but
distributed separately from Microsoft. Works just fine to defrag
single files.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

"Cyberiade.it Anonymous Remailer" wrote:Indeed, it enlarges it.

If you do a lot of install/uninstall of programs for testing purposes the VM
(physical size on disk) seems to grow in size. To solve for this condition
you need to empty the recycle bin (or use CCleaner to get out the crud) and
then defragment. You can then prepare the VM for compaction (use the virtual
disk precompactor from with VM Additions).

After you close down the VM you can use the Virtual Disk Wizard to compact
the VM. I have seen the physical size of the VM decrease by 2-4 gig in
physical size and the aftermath is that the VM seems a bit more responsive
when I again use that particular VM.


--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Crimsom" <Crimsom@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:34B938B1-8E41-4E92-83EC-C191058ED1B5@xxxxxx

Thank you very much you all, the Precompactor works! It is 4.6Gb now and if I
use Windows's compression it goes down to 3.5Gb. I'll try out the Contig
program too.

Greetings, Crimsom.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:22:01 -0800, Crimsom
<Crimsom@xxxxxx> wrote:
Note that Contig will not make your VHD any smaller, it just will make
it contiguous on the host drive (fully defragged).
This will sometimes make the guest a bit snappier (depending on how
severly fragmented the VHD file on the host was before).

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)