Hi all. Any input would be appreciated.
I am using Workstation Pro 15 on Dell Precision 7730 with a ~500GB SSD running Win 10 Pro on my host. I have a template in Workstation Pro with a second licensed version of Win 10 Pro and a few other base applications I like.
I am a contractor using linked clones, one per job, which all point back to the same template. I expect to create a number of linked clones (maybe 15) from this 1 template over the next 2 years or so. Here is an image of my Documents/VirtualMachines folder with 1 x VM template and 3 x VM clones(linked). I don't expect to add much more to the template, but each of those clones will probably fill up to ~40GB as I work in those VMs. And of course there will be at least 10 more of the same size.
When I made the Win 10 pro template, I set the disk size to 60GB, as shown in the screenshot below. I've been making small improvements to the template and taking a new snapshot each time before making the next linked clone. But I'm concerned about making a snap shot for every little change I want to make on the template. Here are my questions:
1.) Did I grossly underestimate the disk size to make the template? Should it be closer to 250GB rather than 60GB?
2.) Is 15 snapshots going to take up too much space over the course of the next 2 years? Will even 6 snapshots take up too much space?
Thanks for any input you may have!
An update on this topic that I started last year: I was concerned that my windows template needed to be much larger than 60GB, but that concern doesn't seem to be warranted. As you can see in the image below, the largest clone is using 43GB (while it has a max of 60GB allocated). My Windows template also has a max of 60GB allocated, and it is only using 18.6 GB.
