vm size is 1,9GB, but it's take 500GB to copy and store

[nmluan]

Hi everyone,

On my ESXi5 server, I have a datastore named “datastore1”, which capacity is 404,75GB.

I created a virtual machine have 1 HDD 500GB, type thin provision. After OS was installed, my virtual machine take 1,88GB as you can see

I’m use vSphere Client browse my datastore I saw  vHDD drive, *.vmdk size is 1,9GB.

But when I’m log in to datastore via ESX console or 3th party application (Veeam), I saw file on datastore is different from what I saw on vSphere.

File vmdk’s size is 0,48KB (which is 1,9GB on vSphere), I guess that this file is a configure file, the real file is *-flat.vmdk file, it’s take 500GB on my HDD but my datastore’s capacity have just 404,75GB? I don’t know how vmware store file 500GB on my HDD has 404,75GB free?

Seconds, In this situation, when I copy virtual machine to another place or to backup,

Now I want to copy and backup this virtual machine to another place, It’s take 500GB to copy and store. My virtual machine size is 1,9GB, but we must have 500GB to copy and store this machine. It’s take a lot of time and space.

Can everyone have any ideas or suggestion this case?

Sorry for my bad knowledge, and English.

Thanks for your ideas and suggestion!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Communities forums.  Which version of Veeam Backup are you using?  I believe you need version 4.0 or higher to prevent thin provisioned disks from being copied to thick disks as you are experiencing.

[nmluan]

sorry, did you mean Veeam Backup and Replication version? I'm using Veeam Backup and FastSCP version 3.0.3. I think my version is the newest.

How about I use different software to copy?

Honestly, I want to move my virtual machines from current ESX to another, I've some virtual machine that I configured 1 or 2TB thin provision hard disk, but it just uses about 100GB, if it's take 1 or 2TB to move and store in new ESX, it will be a problem.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

...it’s take 500GB on my HDD but my datastore’s capacity have just 404,75GB

Actually it doesn't use 500GB on the disk. What you see is the provisioned disk size. Thin provisioning is a feature of the VMFS file system, that's why 3rd party tools like FastSCP only see the provisioned size and "expand" the virtual disk when copying it to another location.

As for the two .vmdk files. You are correct, each virtual disk consists of two files, the descriptor/header .vmdk file as well as the data file (flat.vmdk or delta.vmdk).

In order to copy the VM to another host without expanding the virtual disk, you can export the VM to an OVF and then import it on the taget host. If you want to preserve the settings (e.g. MAC address) you may copy the configuration files (.vmx, .vmxf, .nvram) to the target once the VM has been imported. If you are going to do this, make sure you reload the VM after copying the files (Remove VM from Inventory and re-add it by right clicking the .vmx file in the datastore browser).

André