Copy VM in datastore. 2GB becomes 30GB!!

[fajarpri]

Hi all,

ESXi 4, using vSphere client. I browse the datastore, and copy a VM folder into another folder in the same datastore. It takes almost 1 hour.

When I take a look in the destination folder, the file becomes 30GB!!!, from the original file of 2GB.

What happens? Now wonder it takes so long to copy.

On second thought it's as if, the Thin Provisioning dissapears when doing the copy. 30GB is the size of the VM disk.

What is the best way to create a "clean" copy of VM, can I just copy paste the folder?

Thanks in advance.

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

Copy operation create alway thick disks.

If you want to copy to a thin disk, you must use vmkfstools command:

http://www.slashzero.com/2008/10/how-to-thin-provision-an-exsiting-vmware-disk-on-esxi-without-virtu...

Andre

[bulletprooffool]

Disks are created as 'Thin disks' when building VMs by default.

If you run a flat copy, this is automatically expanded into a thick disk.

You can retain this as a thin disk by using variious vmtools, such as vmkfstools or, if you have vCentre, sVmotion

[srinivasvivek]

Cloning is always the best way to duplicate the VM. You can use cp command to do a bit by bit copy from console

[fajarpri]

How to connect to the ESXi (installable) console? I cannot ssh into it.

[Troy_Clavell]

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/ESXi_enable_SSH.php

[DSeaman]

So without enabling SSH in ESXi, how does one copy off a VM that is thin provisioned to a Windows computer and stays thin provisioned? FastSCP isn't thin aware either and expand the disks. This is critical for us to accomplish in a supported fashion to update our remote offices with DVD media.

[AndreTheGiant]

You can use VMware Standalone Conveter 4.

Andre