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Immortal
Immortal

vdiskmanager GUI

For users who don't want to mess with the command line, I wrote a quick-n-dirty GUI wrapper for vmware-vdiskmanager in the spirit of RDPetruska's VMware DiskManager GUI.

This program allows you to create a new virtual disk, expand an existing virtual disk, or defragment an existing virtual disk.

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94 Replies
Pat_Lee
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Eric,

This is great, thanks for making this happen.

Pat Lee

Senior Product Manager - Mac Products

VMware

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Well.. is the goal to use iDefrag, and Diskeeper, and vdiskmanager to defrag.. all together in some set order, where maybe even iDefrag is run at the tail-beginning and the tail-end et ...

Or, is vdiskmanger only meant for vdisk's and not for boot camp partitions...

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Pat_Lee
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

In looking at what Eric posted, this is graphical interface for our command line tools that ONLY work with virtual disks. Boot Camp disks need not apply.

Thanks again to Eric for making a nice tool for Fusion users!

Pat

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Okay... so does this mean I should just use Diskeeper for the Boot Camp partition, and for the vdisk, use just iDefrag and vdiskmanager GUI and not Diskeeper...

I have Vista in both Boot Camp and also in a vdisk.. which is not preallocated...

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adamsimpson
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If we are using a pre allocated vdisk is there any benefit of using vdiskmanager over the regular windows defragger?

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Pat_Lee
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

As Eric said in the tip in his tools, I believe that the order to do any defragmentation of virtual disks is:

1) Defrag the files inside the guest using the tools supplied by the guest OS or third party tools

2) Then use the VMware Tools or even easier with Eric's graphical tools

3) Defrag the VMDK files using Mac defragmentation tools if necessary

If you are a pre-allocated virtual disk taking the entire space up front, I believe that you just use the guest tools and then Host OS tools if necessary.

If you are using a raw disk (Boot Camp), you should use the defragmentation utilities from Windows or other guest inside the VM.

Hope that helps.

Pat

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Someone else was advocating defragging the Mac before using diskeeper (or defragging the guest)

You're placing Mac defragging as the last step, but with respect to VMDK files.. and I've only seen idefrag give me the option to defrag the entire disk (not sure what the selection with cursor/grabber really does)

So if I combine the two advocations (yes, advocations), it'd become, for a not-pre-allocated vdisk,

1. Defrag the host

2. Defrag the guest

3. Defrag with Eric's Tool

4. Defrag the host

Preallocating removes the need to use Eric's Tool; and using Boot Camp removes the need to use both Erics's Tool and one of the two stages of Defragging the host (though you'll need to defrag the host irregardless)

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manfredell
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

THANKS A LOT! This should have come (perhaps it will) with Fusion from the start.

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DaveP
Commander
Commander

Brilliant. Thanks!

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trodemaster
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Thanks etung!

After walking a few people through disk expansion on the phone I was about to fire up applescript studio myself.

Blake-

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Changes:

  • Improve logging

  • Added Convert action

  • Added missing Edit menu, removed extraneous Help menu

  • Mock-up of Raw Disk action (does not yet work)

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fox_michael2
Contributor
Contributor

Nice work.

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piebas
Contributor
Contributor

What dus de covert doing?

When it is not converting ide -> scsi.

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

Converting Disk types (to/from monolithic/2GB-split and/or growable/preallocated), NOT Disk Adapter types (IDE/SCSI).

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piebas
Contributor
Contributor

ok, now it's clear.... Smiley Happy

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mystere
Contributor
Contributor

Cool - good skills etung ....

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Using log file /var/tmp//vmware-markcox/vdiskmanager.log

Failed to defragment: There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation (14).

Does the above message refer to enough space on the virtual drive, or on the Mac HD...

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Using log file

/var/tmp//vmware-markcox/vdiskmanager.log

Failed to defragment: There is not enough space on

the file system for the selected operation (14).

Does the above message refer to enough space on the

virtual drive, or on the Mac HD...

Probably the Mac HD - I believe that defragmenting a virtual disk requires as much free space as the maximum space of the virtual disk, unless[/i] it's split into 2GB chunks in which case it only requires 2GB free.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Can you use vdiskmanager to expand te disk when the vm is suspended... or are you supposed to shut it down first...

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