Migration space needed

[katie215]

Hi, I didnt see this question asked anywhere so sorry if it is a duplicate of something already answered.  I just bought fusion 6 and want to migrate my old windows 7 64bit laptop to my new mac.  The laptop has a 120 gig hd and only like 60 gogs are used.  When I run the migration assistant, it tells me I will need 193.8 gigs of space on my mac.  Why is the space requirement 3 times the size of what I actually have?

[WoodyZ]

How much space on the old laptop is taken up by Windows?

[katie215]

total disk space used on my laptop is 59.9 gigs

28.1 gigs of which is the windows folder

[digitaldybbuk]

Are you sure it's a 120GB HD? Can you provide screen shots? It's possible that this windows machine has a recovery partition in the hard drive and your hard drive is actually 200GB. To know for sure, type Computer Management in the start menu and go to Storage and then Disk Management.

[katie215]

it is absolutely a 120 gig hard drive.  I included the recovery partition with the 120 gigs. 

If I go ahead with the migration (I have enough space available) will it make a partition that is 193.8 gigs on my mac?  If so, can I resize that later?  Will it migrate over the recovery partition?  Will I be able to delete that later?

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

My recommendation is not to use the VMware Fusion Migration Assistant and instead use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to create the Virtual Machine and only take the relevant partitions like the C: Drive and not the Recovery Partition if applicable because it will be of no use in a Virtual Machine!   You can set the target to the Mac or an external drive connected to the old laptop and I'd recommend the latter and then transfer the VM after it's created by attaching the external disk to the Mac and copying it.  Have a look at: VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.5 User's Guide

[WoodyZ]

DO NOT USE the VMware Fusion Migration Assistant and no you cannot resize a virtual hard disk downwards after it's partitioned/formatted and or OS installed and this applies to a VM created by the VMware Fusion Migration Assistant.  If you want aggregate control over the size during conversion then use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to create the Virtual Machine!

[digitaldybbuk]

Not sure about recent migration assistant status but I remember it not being able to even support recovery partitions. WoodyZ is right, use the standalone converter and I think it will be smooth sailing for you. You might also think about using whats called Thin Provisioning for your Disk Type. What this does is, if your HD is 120 but you are only using 60GB, the vm will be 60GB. The only downside to this is that it will run slower because of how it's designed to work, but it definitely is a only way if you are trying to fit an originally bigger HD into a newer smaller one.

[katie215]

ok, I will give that a try.  Thanks

[WoodyZ]

digitaldybbuk wrote: You might also think about using whats called Thin Provisioning for your Disk Type.

Thin provisioning [VIXDISKLIB_DISK_VMFS_THIN] is not applicable to VMware Fusion only ESXi (ESX).

@digitaldybbuk You may want to read the Virtual Disk API Programming Guide.

[digitaldybbuk]

Thanks WoodyZ I mainly work with ESXi so I assumed such a technology would be available on Fusion.