Export VM from Esxi 7.0.3 using vsphere vmdk change from thick to thin

[pdbITA]

HI, I tried to export a VM from esxi 7.0.3 and import it into wmware workstation 17. Both in ovf format and by downloading. The thick format disc becomes thin. How can I keep the disk in the thick format?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

A VM export to OVF creates "stream optimized" .vmdk files, which then need to be imported in order to be usable.
VMware Workstation uses a sparse file format by default, whereas "Thin" in ESXi is not a file format, but a VMFS file system feature.
Sparse files can be converted to an ESXi file format using the vmware-vdiskmanager command line utility.

Downloading a .vmdk file using e.g WinSCP will always end up in a "thick" ESXi file format, regardless of the format on the ESXi host (thin, or thick). That's because - as mentioned above - thin provisioning is a VMFS file system feature.

André

[pdbITA]

Many Thanks.