VMware Fusion 2.0.1 hard disk size inflation

[rauckr]

I have my Fusion virtual machine size set to 60 GBytes. Finder reports the size at ~ 193 GBytes. When I open "Show package contents", I see a large number of files that do not look right. They are of the form:

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000001.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000001.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000002.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000002.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000003.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000003.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000004.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000004.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000005.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000005.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000006.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000006.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000007.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000007.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000008.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000008.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000009.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000009.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000010.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000010.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000011.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000011.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000012.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000012.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000014.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000014.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000016.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000016.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000017.vmdk

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-000017.vmdk.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot36.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot36.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot36.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot37.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot37.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot37.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot38.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot38.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot38.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot39.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot39.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot39.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot40.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot40.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot40.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot41.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot41.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot41.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot42.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot42.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot42.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot43.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot43.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot43.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot44.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot44.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot44.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot45.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot45.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot45.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot46.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot46.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot46.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot47.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot47.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot47.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot48.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot48.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot48.vmsn

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot50.vmem

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot50.vmem.lck

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition-Snapshot50.vmsn

Many of the files are quite large. I have deleted all snapshots using the snapshot management tool under the virtual machine menu but these files remain. Disk cleanup does not fix the problem. What is all this junk and what can be safely removed manually? Is there something else I should be doing to resolve this problem? I do have Autoprotect turned on.

[admin]

These are snapshots; you cannot manually delete them without losing data. Autoprotect could explain it since it uses snapshots which are not shown by default; to see them unselect "Only show my snapshots" in the snapshot manager.

[FenderBender]

I have a similar problem. I had auto protect enabled and noticed that my vmwarevm file had reached ~40GB while my virtual disk is only a quarter that size. I deleted all of the snapshots except one, which refuses to be deleted. etung, could you elaborate on what you mean when you say "you cannot manually delete them without losing data"? Are you talking about deleting them using the snapshot manager in Fusion?

[rauckr]

I had already unselected "Only show my snapshots" in the snapshot manager and removed the snapshots.

It did not affect the long list of files. The list I published was taken after I removed all snapshots and ran disk cleanup.<!-- BEGIN attachments -->

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[admin]

I deleted all of the snapshots except one, which refuses to be deleted.

What happens when you try? If you get an error message, what's the exact text?

etung, could you elaborate on what you mean when you say "you cannot manually delete them without losing data"? Are you talking about deleting them using the snapshot manager in Fusion?

I was talking about deleting them in the Finder, outside of Fusion's knowledge. Using Fusion's Snapshot manager is fine.

[admin]

If you take and delete a new snapshot, what happens? If you get an error, what's the exact text?

[rauckr]

I had no problem deleting any and all snapshots. The only error message I received was when I attempted to delete the first snapshot, I got the message that there was not enough free space to clean-up the disk. The virtual machine had ballooned at that point to consume nearly all free space on the 300 GByte hard drive. Initially there were four snapshots, one I had manually created and three created by Autoprotect.

[rauckr]

I have tried an experiment. I created a junk folder outside the virtual machine and moved all the numbered files listed in the first post above to it. I verified normal operation of applications. I then shut the virtual machine down and restarted it without incident or error messages. I created a new snapshot with no error messages. The next step is to restore the new snapshot to determine if this capability is still intact. This is a scary step since it may wreck the virtual machine if the snapshot is defective. I will create a copy of the virtual machine on a CD-ROM in case there is a disaster. I suspect there will be no problem but I will also burn a copy of the numbered files to a CD-ROM as additional insurance.

[rauckr]

My brain must have been on vacation. This file set would take too many DVDs to be practical. It is huge.

[rauckr]

I removed the extra files and everything appears to be fine. I am leaving Autoprotect off as a precaution in case it was the source of the problem.

[imboeschi]

Hello,

I have a similar problem with VMWare Fusion 2.0.1. The virtual machine folder takes up 57GB but the actual "Used size" of the two hard disks are listed in Windows XP as being 11.4GB and 10.2GB respectively. If I add up the sizes of the two sets of .vmdk files for the disk images they are 26GB and 30GB respectively. Each virtual disk is set to a maximum size of 40GB, the "Pre-allocate disk space" option is unchecked and the "Split into 2GB files" option is checked.

There are no snapshots at all (just "current state") and autoprotect is disabled. I've run disk cleanup on both disks.

It might be that at some point I once had enough files on the virtual disks to inflate them to this size (and in the past I did keep snapshots, having subsequently deleted them) - but then surely the disk cleanup command should have resized them?

Any help much appreciated, I'd really like to recover this "wasted" space.

[imboeschi]

I was able to answer my own question - using the shrink command in the vmtools I was able to shrink the disk images down to the minimum size.