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trevwhite
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Import OVF with Thin Disks

Does anyone know if there is a way to import an OVF into vmWare Workstation Pro (either directly or using the ovftool) but the disks to be forced as thin provisioned.

My import is taking hours as it's padding the disks as thick provisioned.

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Alex_Romeo
Leadership
Leadership

Hi,

--diskMode

Short name: -dm

Specify the disk format. You can specify the following formats: monolithicSparse, monolithicFlat, twoGbMaxExtentSparse, twoGbMaxExtentFlat, seSparse (vSphere target), eagerZeroedThick (vSphere target), thin (vSphere target), thick (vSphere target), sparse, and flat.

Usage

--diskmode=format

 

Example: --diskMode=thin

Deploy the Appliance Using VMware OVF Tool · VMware vSphere Integrated Containers 1.5 Documentation (also good for your case)

ARomeo

Blog: https://www.aleadmin.it/
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trevwhite
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Many thanks for the reply, I did try that without success before, I thought I just got it wrong because I get this:

"c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool\ovftool.exe" -tt=vmx --diskMode=thin "image.ovf"  VMDIR

Opening OVF source: image.ovf

The manifest validates

Opening VMX target: VMDIR

Error: Invalid target disk adapter type: thin

Deleting directory tree below: VMDIR\image

Warning:

- Wrong file size specified in OVF descriptor for 'image-1.vmdk' (specified: -1, actual 17743123968).

- Wrong file size specified in OVF descriptor for 'image-2.vmdk' (specified: -1, actual 85227460096).

- Wrong file size specified in OVF descriptor for 'image-3.vmdk' (specified: -1, actual 28942510080).

Completed with errors

Any ideas?

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Workstation is not able to use or create  or import "Thin" provisioned VMDKs.

So the error message:

Error: Invalid target disk adapter type: thin

is spot on.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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trevwhite
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What does workstation call it's "thin" system in that case because it certainly doesn't fill the disk to it's full size?

The default option is not to pre-allocate the disks (see captures attached)

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/15.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-3F94C7B5-19A5-4E...

Specifying Disk Capacity for a Virtual Machine

For custom configurations, you can select Allocate all disk space now to allocate all disk space immediately rather than allow the disk space to gradually grow to the maximum amount. Allocating all the disk space immediately might provide better performance, but it is a time-consuming operation that requires as much physical disk space as you specify for the virtual disk. If you allocate all the disk space immediately, you cannot use the shrink disk feature.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

> What does workstation call it's "thin" system in that case because it certainly doesn't fill the disk to it's full size?
Workstation uses "monolithicSparse" for the one-piece VMDKs and "twoGbMaxExtentSparse" for the split variant.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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