moving VM folder to firewire hard drive

[drjeff]

Simple question but I am unclear about the other responses I have read. My MB Pro (10.5.8) HD is almost full. Can I move the ginormous VM folder to my external hard drive and still run my Windows software that is in it?

[WoodyZ]

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is make sure the Virtual Machine is shutdown, not suspended, and VMware Fusion is closed before moving the Virtual Machine. After moving and the first time starting by double-clicking on the target Virtual Machine Package, as that's the fastest way to have it show back on the Virtual Machine Library window in VMware Fusion, you will reply "I moved it" when prompted. You can ctrl-click the dead entry on the Virtual Machine Library that will show from having moved the Virtual Machine and select Delete to remove the old entry.

I run quite a few Virtual Machines from FireWire Drives and FireWire is better then USB for this.

[drjeff]

Excellent, thanks!

One other thing, best way to deal with this message: "VMware Fusion has paused this virtual machine because the disk on which the virtual machine is stored is almost full."

I had to force quit last night as I couldnt do anything else.

[WoodyZ]

Force quitting would always be my last option because you do risk doing irreparable damage to the Virtual Machine.

I would have temporarily moved some other files off of the Macintosh HD in order to free up enough space for the Virtual Machine to be shutdown properly. One file in particular is the OS X hibernatefile (/var/vm/sleepimage) which is the size of the amount of RAM the Mac has. I'd temporarily turn off Hibernation and delete the sleepimage file as this is a very easy and fast way to free up a major chunk of space quickly without having to move something elsewhere to free up the space to fix Fusion and then turn hibernation back on.

[drjeff]

Thanks so much for your speedy replies Woody. I haven't force quit this am yet. Unfortunately tho I am not being given the option to shut down the VM otherwise. I can't find (nor can Spotlight) the "hibernate" file to which you referred. I only need a few extra free MBs. If I free up some space will the VM shut down normally?

[WoodyZ]

I can't find (nor can Spotlight) the "hibernate" file to which you referred.

Spotlight does not show all files on the system.

The hibernatefile is located at /var/vm/sleepimage

>I only need a few extra free MBs. If I free up some space will the VM shut down normally?

The VM will shutdown normally if you still have the pause dialog box that should enable you to continue once enough space has bee freed up. If you no longer have that dialog box I'm not sure what will happen, maybe it will allow the VM to suspend, not sure... sorry.

To remove the hibernatefile do the following in a Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal):

The following command will show you the current hibernatemode so you can reset it. Its normal default is 3 but good to check first.

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

The following commands will turn off hibernation and remove the hibernatefile.

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

The following command will set hibernatemode back to 3 or change the number based on output of first pmset -g command.

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

Hint: You can copy and paste these commands into the Terminal and then press Enter after.

[drjeff]

Very curious. I freed up plenty of space and the VM did indeed continue to run. After a few seconds however all of the free space became filled again (I didn't add anything) and of course Fusion again paused. Is this common (or normal)?

[WoodyZ]

Well is all relative to the Virtual Machine's settings and VMware Fusion's settings and without the technical information I really don't want to waste time generalizing.

The bottom line is you need to free up some additional space so you'll need to look at what you have and make a decision.

If you want to take a graphical view of what's on the disk you can use either GrandPerspective or Disk Inventory X to do that.