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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Disk Space

I am using VMware fusion 12.2.2 on a MacBookPro running BigSur. The VM installed is a CentOS 6. I was running out of disk space and I increased the disk space from 80 Gb to 120 Gb. However, this disk increase has not solved the problem it looks like the VM has not seen the size increase BUT my hard disk has... so now I have 40 Gb less to no avail. Is there a way to let my VM see the extra disk space? Also, I see a huge .cache file that occupies a lot of space how do I get rid of it?

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You need to increase the size of whatever partition is inside the virtual disk, something like this (ignoring all of step1): https://www.miarec.com/doc/administration-guide/doc1014

 

 


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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Hello, I cannot partition my HD. Using the OS Disk Utility (I use a MacBookPro with Big Sur), I see a message that states that. My VM occupies 77.17 Gb, I originally had allocated 80 Gb and I was tight so I increased the allocation to 120 Gb but it does not show. In the meantime, as I said, I "lost" 40 Gb on my HD... Any other suggestion?

 

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I didn't say or mean anything about partitioning your host OS, only the guest OS inside your VM.

Define "does not show", maybe with a screenshot.

 


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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, following your advice, I went down the protocol until I had to type 'disk -l', after which I receive the message 'disk: command not found'.

When I try to install 'fdisk' , I get the following:

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit, security
Setting up Install Process
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
No package fdisk available.
Error: Nothing to do

So I am stuck. In the meantime, I removed the large amount of files in the .cache folder and I would be happy to stay with the 80 Gb that I had at the beginning. So I need to know either i) how to expand the VM partition to 120 Gb, or ii) how to go back to the 80 Gb that I had before.

Thanks in advance,

Stefano

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Here is what I see under Settings for the VM that I would like to get back to 80 Gb. Any chance to go back there?

StefanoCiurli_0-1623332475625.png

 

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You can't easily make disks smaller.

The simplest approach (if you have the space) is to create a new smaller disk, copy over the data from old larger disk to new smaller disk, then remove the old larger disk.

You might be able to do some stuff using a combination of command-line tools and modifying files, but I don't know the steps.

 


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

To expand the partition inside the 120Gb vmdk you can use for example gparted from inside the guest.
If gparted does not allow a resize while the partition is in use - use a LiveCD with gparted instead.

Ulli


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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Would you please indicate the exact procedure to do that?

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Boot your VM.

Start gparted - if it is not available install it.
Show a screenshot of gparted - this should show us how the 120gb disk is partitioned at the moment.
Once we know that,  we can suggest options.
Ulli

 


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

when I try to install gparted I see this:

$ sudo yum install gparted
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit, security
Setting up Install Process
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
No package gparted available.
Error: Nothing to do

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

https://www.explorelinux.com/install-gpated-on-centos-8/

 


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks a lot! I installed gparted now and the screenshot is here below. At this point I would like to delete the 40 Gb partition. Can I do it? Eventually how?

StefanoCiurli_0-1623479429595.png

 

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

It’s not a partition, I mentioned previously about making disks smaller.

 


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, thanks for the help. If you refer to the following, I need instructions, if you can:

"You can't easily make disks smaller. The simplest approach (if you have the space) is to create a new smaller disk, copy over the data from old larger disk to new smaller disk, then remove the old larger disk. You might be able to do some stuff using a combination of command-line tools and modifying files, but I don't know the steps."

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Please run ls -l *.vmdk in the VM's folder/package to get an overview of the VM's virtulal disk files, and post the output.
In you're using the default virtual disk file format (with several -s00x.vmdk files), then also post the contents of the virtual disk's descriptor/header file (the small .vmdk text file without "-s00x" in it's name).

André

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, here is the output after the first command (i do not understand what to do for your second hint, sorry):

[MacBook-Pro:~/Virtual Machines.localized/NMRPipe_CentOS6.5_64.vmwarevm] stefano% ls -l *.vmdk

-rw-------  1 stefano  staff  77273956352 Jun 12 16:30 NMRPipe_CentOS6.5_64-disk1.vmdk

[MacBook-Pro:~/Virtual Machines.localized/NMRPipe_CentOS6.5_64.vmwarevm] stefano% 

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

According to the output that you've provided, the virtual disk has been created in the monolithic sparse format, so the second part in my previous post is not applicable in this case.

Due to the sparse format, the currently unallocated guest disk space (40GB) will not consume host disk space until you e.g. resize sda2, or  create a new partition, and store data on this space. This said, it's actually up to you to decide whether you can live with the current state, or if you want to get rid of the unallocated space, which is more or less just a cosmetic thing.

André

 

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StefanoCiurli
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you very much, I will not touch anything and live with this situation. Thanks also to all others that helped me.

Stefano

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