TECH198
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Snapshots and VMWare Fusion

Installing AD/DNS in Fusion, and i took a Snapshot as current with Host-Only config. Then i preceded to install prerequisites and Exchange 2013 under Bridged mode.

After installing Exchange VM >> General size showed 25Gig approx..

 

The Snapshot file "i" for AD/DNS was only 9.5Gig so, when i restored i thought the size would match, but it does not..

Pre-Exchange restored ok, inclusion VM Host only, and no exchange just AD/DNS, BUT when checking size it is still 25Gig, which is too much for just AD/DNS on Windows Server

I the assumed this much be 'white space' from vmdk file... Basically the same game as ESXi datastore does when you shrink..The reason i'm using snapshots is they consume less space then a full clone... but unfortunately if i can't get size back to 9.5 or so gig, then i may as well just do full clone. as it would be easier..

 

Am i doing something wrong here , as virula disk in Windows shows roughly 9 Gig is right... so it must be just white space being the difference.

Reply
0 Kudos
scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

To be clear on the sequence of events:

1. Installed Windows and some stuff (AD/DNS)

2. Took a snapshot

3. Installed some other stuff (Exchange)

4. Reverted to the snapshot in step 2

Is that it? Have you also deleted the snapshot? Did you take another snapshot between steps 3 and 4?

 


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
Reply
0 Kudos
ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Shut down the guest and shrink it from the VM settings window.

Reply
0 Kudos
TECH198
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Correct. No other snapshots taken, and ya, i deletes the snapshot but size still shows

 

How to you shrink in VM settings? All you can do is clean up which didn't help

 

Size is still 25Gig approx. and it  now only holds AD/DNS only.

Reply
0 Kudos
ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

So how are you 'checking space' of the guest?  Looking at the bundle size in finder?

There's a bug in MacOS that bundle sizes may not be accurate (I have a multi TB one that shows only a few K).  Look inside the bundle and see what the total actually is.

I presume you did not create a snapshot of the 25GB version of the guest?

Other ideas: 1) verify that the snapshot file was actually removed from the bundle.  2) open terminal and use tmutil to remove all local snapshots, and 3) reboot the host.

Reply
0 Kudos