Size & Type of WinXP VIrtual Disk Question

[NealTribeca]

Please forgive me if this has been discussed previously, but... I have a MBP 2.6GHz w/ 200GB HD, Fusion 2.0.1 and when I installed Fusion 1.x originally I set WinXP pro Virtual Disk size to 80GB. I now have maxxed out the Host storage (the vmdk files seem to grow uncontrollably!) and am about to reformat and reinstall Leopard, Fusion & WinXP pro, but before I do that I'd like to get some of your comments about what the size/type of WinXP Virtual Disk should be. Obviously I should not have set it at 80 GB at the start. Should it be 20 GB? or less? Also, what type of Virtual Disk should it be? a sparsemonolith I believe is what it is currently set at.

Reason I am running Windows in teh first place, just an fyi...I'm running Outlook Express on WinXP because I've been unable to import my Outlook Express mail I use it to project manage and I have all my mail organized) into a Mac Mail app. I expect my mail to expand from 5GB storage to 10 GB storage over the next 3 years. The Outlook Express storage file needs to be on the WinXP disk to be properly permissioned to read/write to it. Thanks for your suggestions in advance. A

[WoodyZ]

If the only reason you're using Windows is for Outlook Express then I suggest you migrate to Mail in OS X as it would require far less overhead in may different respects.

I had a client that switched and I used DbxConv to convert the OE .dmx files to .mbx format which after renaming the .mbx files to .mbox imported in to Mail without any problems. Yes it take a little bit of work and you need to use a CLI vs a GUI for the conversion however the job gets done.

[NealTribeca]

Thanks, just wondering: were the mails preserved in their original folders as well when you imported them?

[WoodyZ]

Neal,

To follow up on our phone conversation if you do use VMware Converter to correct what might be what I described as orphaned linked snapshots to reduct the size of the Virtual Machine Package you will also be able to resize and change type of the destination virtual hard drive so going this route will resolve most of your Virtual Machine issues.

Suggest you copy the existing Virtual Machine Package to one of your FireWire Drives and do everything to the copy leaving the original as a backup until the process is complete and checked out all is okay. To expedite the process after making the copy I would do the following in the copied Virtual Machine. Use Disk Cleanup in Windows to prep before running VMware Converter and on the More Options tab clean up the System Restore. Then to make the actual conversion go quicker I've use adding a second virtual hard drive to the Virtual Machine as the Destination to allow conversion to go much faster then when converting to a network share as the destination and then when done either drag and drop from within the Virtual Machine to the Mac side or just through a network connection. Obviously you need to look at how much space is being used in the actual Virtual Machine virtual hard drive from the perspective of the Guest OS not the space its occupying on the Host and calculate the size of the second virtual hard drive accordingly taking into consideration the destination type of disk and it resized size. I know it might sound easier/quicker to just go directly to a network share however it's not faster if that destination is onto a different physical computer. Local System Share obviously is faster the a remote however I've found that during the actual conversion process in a case like this that temporarily using a second virtual hard dive the time of the conversion plus the time to move it off the second virtual hard drive is less then converting directly to the Host's share. It appears that when its having to convert and wring to a destination outside of the Virtual Machine itself that the process just cannot move along as quick. Anyway something to think about and of course I have to say YMMV.

Anyway let me know how it all turns out.

Woody

[NealTribeca]

Hi Woody, Thanks again for your superb help so far. I've made two external HDs shared, and can see them from the virtual machine now, and will use as you've suggested. Which Converter do you suggest I use:

VMware Converter 3.0.2 Update 1 (Starter Edition)

Version: 3.0.2 Update 1 | 12/03/2007 | Build: 62456

VMware Converter 3.0.2 (Starter Edition)

Version: 3.0.2 | 2007/10/18 | Build: 59994

VMware Converter 3.0.1 (Starter Edition)

Version: 3.0.1 | 2007/04/26 | Build: 44840

VMware Converter 3.0 (Starter Edition)

Version: 3.0 | 2007/01/30 | Build: 39557

[WoodyZ]

Neal, just use the latest (Starter Edition) version as that one if free and works just fine for what you're doing.

VMware Converter 3.0.3 (Starter Edition)

Latest Version: 3.0.3 | 2008/05/06 | Build: 89816

[NealTribeca]

One more question, when Converter prompts "Allow virtual disk files to expand"

or

"Allocate all disk space now for better performance"

which do you suggest I select?

[WoodyZ]

I use lots of different Virtual Machines for many different reasons and while with the majority of then I use growable disks I do have a few that I have not only allocated all space I also have the virtual hard drive as a single file vs 2 GB split. These few Virtual Machines are my primary work Virtual Machines and for performance purposes I believe having them preallocated monolithic disks provides for the best case scenario for keeping them defraged both on Host as well as in the Guest and I find a noticeable difference vs split sparse disks. That said keep in mind that I have the available disk space to maintain these and deal with the large files although the virtual hard drives are not huge as these few are in the 8 to 12 GB and I use a second virtual hard drive with them that is a Raw Disk when I need to have additional space local to the Virtual Machine however most of the time they do what I need as is.

That said if you're going to down size the Virtual Machine as we talked about on the phone and for just using it for OE then I would consider making it a growable (sparse) disk and it can alway be converted to a preallocated disk easy enough later if you felt the performance wasn't good enough for what/how you're using it.

To put it in a different perspective I use many copies of a given Virtual Machine that are single task oriented and also disposable and these are all using sparse disks however the main one I use on a Mac that is used as and meant to be the replacement for physical Windows PC it uses a preallocated monolithic disk.

Hope that helps and have a nice Thanksgiving!

[NealTribeca]

Thanks again Woody. After doing everything we discussed I hit a brickwall when I attempted to set size of new virtual disk in the VMWare Converter. I tried 20, 25, & 30 GB and tried the two types with each of those as well and all said "not enough room" so, I reformatted HD, reinstalled OS X, Fusion 1.1, WinXP, all my apps, all the data, all the settings, McAfee updates & voila 6 hrs later I am happy as a clam. Now I have a 25GB WinXP VM with 13 GB free space on Guest, and 140 GB free space on Host. Now I guess I won't upgarde the HD to 320 GB, & I will leave Fusion 1.1 and avoid the BSODs ! I'm truly grateful for your hugely responsive and generous help, and wish you & yours a very peaceful holiday.

[NealTribeca]

Woody, So far the reformat & re-install have worked dandy. The vm has increased in size from 25GB to 36 GB and I remain VM vers 1.1. Is it correct for me to assume that this wil contune to grow in size to about twice the orginal and then stop? or will it continue to grow beyond 2x? Thanks, Neal

[admin]

The vm has increased in size from 25GB to 36 GB and I remain VM vers 1.1. Is it correct for me to assume that this wil contune to grow in size to about twice the orginal and then stop? or will it continue to grow beyond 2x?

If you have a single snapshot, the maximum size is twice the maximum size of the virtual disk (plus overhead for other files associated with the virtual machine, the biggest of which will probably be the vmem files). See http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2008/11/vmware-fusion-3.html for an explanation of why each snapshot (and the base disk, of course) can take up as much space as the maximum size of the base disk.

[NealTribeca]

Thanks, ok, I read the documentation there, and this means that it will continue to grow to fill-up the host disk until a new snapshot is taken and the old ones are discarded., yes?

I saved an new snapshot, and then I discarded old snapshots, and my VM disk shrunk to its original approx. size: 25.5 GB

[WoodyZ]

Neal, Each Snapshot can only grow to the size that is stated for the virtual hard drive under Settings. In Fusion 2.x you can have more then one Snapshot and there is also a feature called AutoProtect that creates a number of Snapshots depending on how one has it configured. Personally I wouldn't waste my time with AutoProtect and its been reported to not work in some cases and is not configurable to a fixed schedule and worst of all a AutoProtect Snapshot can occur right in the middle of something you're doing and you don't have the opportunity to delay/pause/stop it at that moment and if in the middle of something mission critical and something goes wrong, etc., etc. With Fusion 1.x it only supports a single Snapshot at a time however I've see it malfunction and have multiple snapshots that are chained together and in some cases the only way to correct it is to use some method of recreating the virtual hard drive to consolidate the delta in the chained snapshots and the base disk. I use Ghost to do that however one can use VMware Converter to do it as well.

So lets say under normal conditions with only one snapshot the max the Virtual Machine Document Package should grow is 2 times the value of the size of the virtual hard drive as stated in the setting plus an additional amount for virtual memory cache and other and a bit more for the rest of the files in the Package.

Example: Virtual Machine with 25 GB HDD and 1 GB RAM and one Snapshot the Virtual Machine Document Package should never grow but a little beyond 51 GB and if it's growing way beyond that then something is not right.

[NealTribeca]

Woody, Thank you for the clarity. For now I'm staying w/Fusion 1.1 For 8 months I used it without a problem. As soon as I upgraded to Fusion 2.x I started experiencing BSODs.

Now that I've re-formatted the 200GB Host Drive, reinstalled and reset the WinXP VM size to 25 GB (rather than at 80 GB which is where I had it on teh first install) I think I'm just going to remain "as is" because yesterday I took the SnapShot, and discarded the old one(s) and as I reported earlier my VM resized to 25.5 GB. So, If I can maintain its size using the aforementioned process I expect to be happy as a clam! Now I have 88GB of free space on the host Drive (Mac HD) and 14 GB of free space on the guest Drive (this is after installing the storage hog Final Cut Studio 2 ... I should be just fine. At some point when Fusion 2.x or Fusion 3.x has known issues expunged I may consider an upgrade at that point. I am very appreciative for your continued support in the Community area for VMWare Fusion. Neal

[IMware]

I have the same conclusion about autosnapshots, and don't use it myself in Fusion 2.0.

However, even with the single snapshot, my experience, with a 80 GB WinXP virtual disk, has been that the machine slows to a crawl when the snapshot grows to 10% of the disk size, ~8 GB. I can't imagine that you can do anything useful when your snapshot grows to the same size of the virtual disk.

So periodically, I have to delete all the snapshots, and create a new one.

[NealTribeca]

I've been pleased since I went back to Fusion Vers 1.1 and set the Windows XP Professional-flat.vmdk at 25GB. No BSOD and everything is VERY stable.