Allow virtual disk file to grow

[sgrinker]

We aren't sure yet if this is an issue with Workstation 6 or the newest version of the VMWare Converter CD. When creating a new P2V machine using the newest version of the Cold Boot Converter CD, there is what seems to be a new option to either:

"Allow the virtual disk files to grow."

"Allocate all disk space now for better performance."

"Split disk into 2 GB files"

We select the first of the options, which I believe was the default on the old converter CD and P2V.

Now for my question... Is there a new behavior with the way virtual disks grow, and can you change any settings in that regard? When creating a machine using the previous version of the CD (or even P2V), the VMDK would only be the size of the data on the physical disk. Then when looking at the disk within the VM, you can see X used of Y. Where Y would be the total size of the original physical disk. The VMDK file itself would still grow as needed to allow for more space.

Now what we are seeing is the VMDK created is still only the size of the physical disk. However, looking at the disk within the VM shows X used of X+150MB. You receive low disk warnings as space is used up, but the free space will grow again shortly afterwards. Is there any way to get the performance to respond the way it used to, or at least a way to increase this buffer that appears to be around 150-250MB?

Thanks

Steve

[KevinG]

I am not sure that I understand your question.

Converter is simply asking what type of virtual disk would you like to use (Growable, Preallocated or growable split into 2GB files or a Preallocated virtual disk split into 2GB files. All of these types of virtual disks have been used by the VMware product for sometime (years).

[sgrinker]

The question is more in regard to the behavior we are seeing after the fact. Not so much the options that are available.

On the VMs that were created with the older P2V tool (and older Converter CD), the available free disk space within the OS showed up differently. On the "older" VM's looking at Properties on the disk would show the amount of "Free Space" as the amount of total disk space that was on the original physical machine minus the amount of data. The VMDK itself would only take up the amount of space that the actual data took up.

Now when looking at properties on the disk within the OS, we are seeing only an additional 150-250MB free. Using up that space gives us low disk notifications from XP, but then more additional space is allocated a few seconds later.

[sgrinker]

Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

[sgrinker]

I created a new disk with the same settings on the converted VM, and the free space shows up correctly as one would expect. This seems to be an issue with the way the newest build of the Cold Converter ISO is creating the original disk. I'm going to use the older version to see what we get. Maybe I should post this in another forum at this point?

[sgrinker]

Ignore this message... even though it appears to have already been ignored.

We converted the same machine yet again with both the old and new version of the Converter CD. This time both of the local drives are performing as one would expect. No idea what happened with the disk the last time, but not going to worry about it...