Defrag - howto?

[VirtualAlexS]

Hello I've got a guest up and running with ESXI for the first time, installed VMTools and defragged the operating system (Win2008) when logged in.

I see plenty of talk but I'm not seeing anything about how to shrink or defrag guest images, or even defrag VMware itself as a whole. Nothing in help either. Can anybody point me on how to do it? (not concerned about why you should/should not, plenty of info there :).

Much appreciated!

Thanks

Alex

[ewilts]

I think you're looking for a product like V-locity from Diskeeper:  http://www.diskeeper.com/business/v-locity/

I havent' used it but it sure looks interesting.  It's pretty pricey though if I'm reading their model correctly (it's licensed by core, not sockets or guests).  List price for V-locity for a 12-core blade would be $2,400.

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

You can't defrag the VMFS datastore file system.

The simplest method to shrink a thin provisioned disk to reclaim empty space is to use VMware Converter or better Storage vMotion if you are licensed for it. With Converter edit the Data to Copy and choose to make the disk slightly smaller. That will cause Converter to create a new virtual disk and do a file by file copy of the data to the new disk.

With Storage vMotion  http://www.virtualizationteam.com/virtualization-vmware/vsphere-virtualization-vmware/vmware-esx-4-r...

[DSTAVERT]

I agree V-locity does look interesting. At this point it only supports ESX but an ESXi version is due soon.