A virtual disk is fragmented affecting the virtual machine's performance.

[cubano100pct]

I keep getting the following message from VMWare Fusion, but I can not find the Defragment Button under Settings:

A virtual disk is fragmented affecting the virtual machine's performance.

To improve performance, defragment the following virtual disk(s): ide0:0

After you power off the virtual machine, go to Virtual Machine Settings, select virtual disk and click the Defragment button.

[SMB1]

Seems that that is one of the features covered under the "this device will be editable in a future release." However, does the Compress disk option do the same thing?

[rcardona2k]

If your VM is a Windows VM, try typing "defrag c:" at the DOS command prompt.

[MacSolidWorks]

I've tried to defragment the c: drive the normal way by using the defragment tool available in windows, but it seems to take forever and doesn't really do a good job. I remember in Parallels that defragmenting a virtual drive needed to be done by the virtualization software, not by windows.

Does this hold true in VMware? Why is this option not available in the beta release?

-MacSolidWorks

[rcardona2k]

I think it's been determined that message refers to host fragmentation of the virtual disk not the internal fragmentation within the image. Obviously defrag attempts to correct the latter.

Since I had not seen this error before the guest fragmentation is how I interpreted the error.

The only correlator that I recall from another thread has to do with storing the virtual disk in a FileVault area of the host drive.

[rcardona2k]

>Does this hold true in VMware? Why is this option not available in the beta release?

Try looking at the VMware Tools menu within the image. I think the option you're searching for is there.

[taiidani]

Sorry for bringing back a dead topic, but I got the error as well the third time I started up my VM. Haven't seen it since though.

It does seem like an unimplemented feature, as the directions in the message are very specific about turning off the VM and going to the Disks tab in your VMWare settings. Either way, the message needs to be revised or they need to put a Defragment button in the Hard Disk settings.

I'm thinking this might be leftover from whatever architecture Fusion is based off of, since Fusion lists it's settings as Hard Drive, not Virtual Disk.

[rcardona2k]

I think that message is somehow a false alarm. I've seen it once starting up a VM when my host hard drive was already very busy. And this particular virtual disk has been pre-allocated since day one. I'm not sure what criteria triggers that message but it is not necessary just fragmentation. If VMware is instrumenting the IO and assuming low throughput is "fragmentation" that could explain my case.

[Pat_Lee]

There is currently no UI option to use the VMware specific defragmentation tool today. It has been logged in the system.

However, beta 2 includes the vmware-vdiskmanager command line tool that can be run when the VM is shutdown against the virtual disk (.vmdk).

In the termimal, you would use the following command:

/Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-vdiskmanager -d

See the tools help for more details.

Pat

[bana2]

I have tried do exactly that, now VMware fusion does not recognize the disk image anymore :'(. I'm glad I made a backup 1st.

[Pat_Lee]

I have tried do exactly that, now VMware fusion does

not recognize the disk image anymore :'(. I'm glad I

made a backup 1st.

If it doesn't recognize the disk anymore, it is most likely a permissions issues. If you used sudo first in the tool to do the refragment, the permissions are reset to root. You need to select the virtual disk in the Finder and change the permissions back to read / write for you the user and it should be fine.

Pat

[bana2]

duh, could have checked that 1st.. Just did not expect it to change the owner and access rights to the file. But yes that was the problem.. thanks