How to save a VM before deleting it from disk

[GoingAlone]

Very new to VMWare, using Essentials 5.5 with the VSphere Client.  I have a VM I'd like to delete from the disk, but would like to copy it off, in case I need to crank it up again, the host prior to removal. Is this fairly easy to accomplish?  I though of removing it from the inventory, copying the vm folder from the datastore, re-adding it to the inventory then removing it from the disk.  Would this work if I ever needed to bring the vm back?

Thanks for any insight!

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

You can download the VM files from datastore directory and don't need remove from the inventory, just shutdown the VM to release file locks.

[GoingAlone]

Thanks for the reply! So once copied from the datastore, I can then delete it from the disk and if I ever need to bring it back, copy the vm folder back to the store and re-add it to the inventory?  It's that easy?

[WessexFan]

Yes, it's just that easy

[GoingAlone]

Let me ask you guys this, if the vm in question has a virtual disk of 100gb on the datastore, will the copy off also be 100gb?

[rcporto]

Yes... it will copy the size of .VMDK and a recommendation try use Veeam Backup & Replication free edition to speed up the process.

[WessexFan]

If you just right-click and download the vm file, the size will be the same.. all of the blocks that are provisioned to the vmdk will be read and downloaded.. I would go ahead and use converter to download the files as it's intuitive enough to read the actual used storage versus provisioned storage.

[GoingAlone]

Thanks for the quick responses!  One more for the road, knowing how much the system in question is actually using on the virtual disk, if I adjust the disk size for the vm lower, lets say to 10gb more than whats actually being used, that would be a way to decrease the size of the .VMDK file and make it a little more manageable, would it not?

But then this is a linux box and partitions are set to certain sizes.  If it is then restored, I would need to increase the size back to the org. in order to make that work on a restore of the vm, right?

[ch1ta]

If I were you, I would not stuff my head with resizing dilemmas, but rather use zip utility proposed above (VeeamZIP).  It works as simple archival tool for VM, and has in-built compression that allows you to reduce the size of resulting file.

Cheers.