vmware-vdiskmanager newbie questions: how to create, etc

[UncleMarky]

0: For future reference: how do I paste in this box.  This forum system is  not letting me use paste. Brower is Chrome, paste works elsewhere

   in Chrome, like for instance in the search entry box under the "Company" tab

1.  I tried to make a new virtual disk with the vmware-vdismanager program and the program is taking a long

time to run.

My command line is:

vmware-vdiskmanager -c -s 100.1GB -t 4 N:\virtual\test.vmdk

The command seems to make a 100.1GB preallocated virtual disk in 2GB pieces, which is what I wanted,

but it seemed to write the entire 100GB.

What should I have done to just allocate and "fast format" the space?

2. I'll just be using the disk as a virtual disk, not from virtual machines.

   I want to be able to move or copy the virtual disk from location to location on the machine

   and to move and copy it to other machines.

   Each copy of the files should be a different virtual disk.

   If I want to make the contents match, I will either overwrite the copy I want to

   update or mount the two sets of files as separate virtual disks, synchronize the

   two virtual disk contents and then dismount the disks.

Thanks.

[MauroBonder]

Check out.http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_disk_manager_examples.html

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers. 

Mauro Bonder - Moderator

[continuum]

the command you used should create a preallocated vmdk in one piece with external descriptorfile in a ESXi compatible format.

If you want split format preallocated use t 3
If you want split growing use t1

there is no such thing as "fast format" - I guess you want the sparse or growing type

[UncleMarky]

Additional question:

  How do I format the virtual disk that I allocated with the vmware-vdiskmanager command?

When I last setup virtual disks for use outside of VMware Workstation (when V5 had

just been released), I added a new disk to an existing virtual machine,

formatted the disk from the running virtual machine, then removed the disk entry

from the virtual machine.

Is it possible to format a partition on a new virtual disk without first adding it to

a virtual machine? (I have Workstation 7, so I could add to a virtual machine and run

the virtual machine, and there is probably a way to do it I now would like to use

VMware Player and a canned machine to do it, but I'd like to do it without using

a virtual machine.)

Back to my original question:

I might have typed the command here correctly before (Paste doesn't work for me here:

it is grayed out in both IE 7 and Chrome) I'll try typing again:

   vmware-vdiskmanager -c -s 100.1GB -t 3 N:\SPACEvirt\test.vmdk

seems to have made a set of 51 .vmdk files totaling 107,481,556,480 bytes (about 100GB).

This was what I wanted to be the final result, but I didn't think that all of the

bytes had to be written.  I know it is possible to preallocate the space for a file

without writing the file. (There seems to be a way to allocate the space without writing to

it, since that is how copy operations work look like they work.)

So, Isn't there an option to just allocate the space without writing it?

I just determined that:

  From within VMware Workstation:

   open a virtual machine

   Edit virtual machine settings

   Add... -> Hard Disk  -> Create a new virtual disk ...

    Select a Disk Type  Independent, Persistant

    Specify Disk Capacity Allocate all disk space now ...

results in the whole (unformatted) disk being written rather than just

the space being allocated and any needed control information being set.

This is the same way vmware-vdiskmanager worked for me, so unless there is

a hidden option or flag that I can set, there is a definite performance problem.

(I think I reported this perfomance issue in VMware Workstation when V5

was the latest version, but I didn't try vmware-vdiskmanager at that time.)

Did I miss the proper option for fast allocation?

Also: I want to preallocate the space since I have had problems with some programs

taking more than 100 times longer to run when they allocate space in small increments

and are allocating space on a flash memory key.  Note that the same programs

also slow down by a large factor (say 5 to 20) due the problem of small incremental

allocations, a mere factor of 5 isn't as striking as a factor of 100.)

(I just confirmed that WMware Workstation Add Hard Disk doesn't have a problem

due to small incremental allocations, but it does have to write all of the data in

the new virtual disk.  I haven't checked if the small incremental allocation problem,

which happened with Workstation V5.5 would happen with Workstation V7.0 or

a virtual disk mounted with VMware Disk Mount and used outside of a virtual machine])

[RDPetruska]

"This is the same way vmware-vdiskmanager worked for me, so unless there is

a hidden option or flag that I can set, there is a definite performance problem."

This is true.  The Workstation GUI merely calls the vdiskmanager process behind the scenes.

"Did I miss the proper option for fast allocation?"

No, since you specify that you WANT a preallocated virtual disk, there is no such thing.

"How do I format the virtual disk that I allocated with the vmware-vdiskmanager command?"

Exactly the same way you would format a disk/partition with a physical disk.  Via commands run inside the guest virtual machine.  The creation of the disk is parallel to you going out and purchasing a hard disk.  In order to DO anything with that disk, you need to attach it to a computer, load an operating system of some sort, and run disk commands on the physical disk drive.

[continuum]

there is no way to speed up creation of preallocated vmdks with vmware-vdiskmanager

however there are ways to create preallocated vmdks almost instantly if you use other commandline tools such as fsz.exe or fsutil.exe

see for example
http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=112&artlang=en

[UncleMarky]

So, since the VMware Disk Mount command works with a single partition on a disk, my

questions should be:

Can I make a virtual machine:

  . set it to boot from a CD for PowerQuest PartitionMagic

  . edit this "model" vm to create and include an Independent Persistent virtual disk allocated the way I want

  . boot the vm and format the 1 or more partitions that I want

  . edit the model to remove the independent persistant virtual disk

  . use the VMware Disk Mount to mount my partition and use from the host without having to

    run a virtual machine each time I want the virtual disk?

(I don't have a PQ PM disk, or I would just try the above myself.)

[UncleMarky]

I want the space for the virtual disk preallocated.  I don't want to write to ALL that preallocated

space, even when I do a quick format of a parition on the virtual disk.

VMware shouldn't require the space to be written to since it doesn't need to reallocate

the space.

I know that NFTS files can be allocated without writing to them, so would expect

that VMware would be able to use the underlying system calls to get the space

allocated and appear to have bee written with zeroes.  It might even be

possible to allocate the space without writing to it on FAT32 filesystems,

but it is possible that the mechanism to do this is not directly callable. Thus

I don't understand why the space can't be allocated by VMware without

writing to the space.

[continuum]

Yes - thats right.

Not sure what your final goal is ?
If you occasionally need ready-to-use vmdks I would create a few partiioned and formatted template vmdks with a helper VM

If you need blank , partitioned AND formatted empty vmdks regularly I would study the work of a guy named Jaclaz at reboot.pro - ex bootland - he has created batchs to do that completely automated

The problem is the partitioning - not the formatting.
You can create a new vmdk with vdiskmanager from a batch.
You can mount a partition inside a vmdk from a batch.
You can also format a partition inside a vmdk from a batch.

The missing piece is only the partitioning - and that can be done with a batch by the mentioned Jaclaz

Another approach could be to mount an unpartitioned vmdk as an iSCSI target - then you can use the hosts formatting tools ....

[UncleMarky]

Thanks.

This is sounds like what I'm looking for:

Jaclaz at reboot.pro - ex bootland - he has created batchs to do that

completely automated

I would have formated the newly created virtual disks in a virtual

machine running Windows,

but somewhere along the way all of my virtual Windows systems decided

that they wouldn't

work because I changed the mouse or they were illegal because I copied

them from one

location to another on the same machine and told VMware Workstation that

they were copies.

(I think I can make new virtual machines by installing Windows XP

Professional from the

OEM disk that is tied to the BIOS, but I didn't want to go through that

now.)

The problem is the partitioning - not the formatting.

I've seen that now. This was also the missing piece a few years ago. I

foolishly thought that VMware

stuff would include a partitioning utility by now.

Another approach could be to mount an unpartitioned vmdk as an iSCSI

target - then you can use the hosts formatting tools ....

I didn't think if iSCSI, but even if I thought of it I wouldn't have

thought of partitioning/formating using iSCSI, to double thanks.