Shrink a Thick-Provisioned Virtual Disk in VMWare 5.5 / 6.0

[groddjur42]

Currently I have several VMs on my 5.5 installation. These all have Thick-Provisioned Virtual Disks.

Because of some data being moved away some of these are now bigger then they need to be. How can I make these smaller? I only use the free version of vSphere

All these machines are going to be migrated to a new server with vSphere 6.0. Is it better to do the resize while migrating or after the migration is done?

[a_p_]

Assuming that you want to stay with thick provisioning, and you are currently not running out of disk space on the v5.5 host, you may use VMware Converter to migrate the VMs to the new host. This way you can do everything in a single task, i.e. by shrinking the virtual disks while converting/migrating the VMs to the new host. This way the source VMs will not be modified, and you can still use them in case the conversion/migration does not work as expected.

André

[carloscoque]

Hi Andre,

I've been trying to do that for a long time and haven't found a way yet.

Several weeks ago I found a tutorial about how to shrink a VM disk using VMware Converter, but the current version of that product had that feature removed.

So if you follow the screens, there no screen with the option to reduce the HD size.

I have some servers with lightweight proprietary applications which just need 80GB and are using almost 500GB.

Do you know anything else which could work?

Thanks,

Carlos

[a_p_]

... but the current version of that product had that feature removed.

I didn't try the latest version yet, but that seems strange. Can you confirm that there's no "Advanced" option in the wizard's disk settings anymore to do a volume based conversion.

André

[carloscoque]

There isn't any option to do that anymore.

I remember that a person had left a comment about that on that article.

Could you confirm if your version is still working for that?

It that's the case, could you disclose the version of the app?

That way, we can try downloading the same version.

[a_p_]

IIRC I used v5.5.

Anyway, I checked the latest documentation https://www.vmware.com/pdf/convsa_61_guide.pdf, and it still covers Volume Based Cloning.

Volume-based cloning at the file level

Performed when you select a size smaller than the original volume for NTFS volumes or you choose to resize a FAT volume.

André

[carloscoque]

I see, but the current version simple doesn't show the same options as the old ones...

Here is the thread I told you: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/how-to-shrink-a-vmdk-using-vmware-converter/

If you see, there is a comment at the end saying that it doesn't work anymore.

That's why I'm trying to find the version which works, so I can download that and it's probably going to work.

[carloscoque]

I found version VMware-converter-en-5.5.3-2183569 and it's apparently working!!

98% and going...