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JaehyunKang
Contributor
Contributor

I got an error message. "There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation."

Hi,

I'm using Fusion 6 Professional on OSX 10.11.2.

I've tried to expand virtual disk storage.

But, I got the below error message.

"There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation"

I checked my real harddisk size with 'df -H' command.

============================================================================

jaehyun$ df -H

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity   iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on

/dev/disk1      750G   608G   141G    82% 148574776 34542150   81%   /

devfs           189k   189k     0B   100%       640        0  100%   /dev

map -hosts        0B     0B     0B   100%         0        0  100%   /net

map auto_home     0B     0B     0B   100%         0        0  100%   /home

/dev/disk2s2    256G    36G   219G    15%   8907376 53523167   14%   /Volumes/Transcend

============================================================================


I guess I have enough space to increase virtual disk storage.

Why I continuously got this error?

(Originally, my virtual storage file was in external storage. and I moved it to internal storage.

Can this action make a problem like this?)


Somebody help me.


Thanks,

Jaehyun

9 Replies
wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

You're not mentioning how large your virtual machine virtual disk currently is and how big you want to make it.

Another missing bit of information is how your virtual disk is setup as a split disk or as a monolithic disk.

The error you are getting makes perfect sense if:

- you have setup your virtual disk as a single file (not using "split in multiple files" option)

- your virtual disk is currently close to or bigger as 140GB in size.

For a change in disk size VMware Fusion will have to clone your original disk and as such it needs double the disk space of your virtual disk.

If you have your virtual disk setup as a split disk then the clone is done per split disk and as such you don't need such massive free disk space if you want to do something like this.

FWIW on VMware Fusion or Workstation I _never_ use monolithic disks for multiple reasons, this being one of the reasons.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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JaehyunKang
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks wilawila.

Now, I found what my problem was.

I used my virtual disk as monolithic disk and my disk size was already 160GB.

So, VMware warned me this message.

Thank you. I'll find the way to split my monolithic disk to several files.


Thanks,

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mauricev
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Why when the disk is monolithic, does VMWare need to clone it? Isn't the point of virtual disks that they're always growable as long as there's space?

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

It depends on the disk operation that you want to do.

For example if a snapshot is consolidated then it will consolidate the snapshot in a clone of the original disk.

This way there's is something to fall back on if the snapshot consolidation cannot complete (for whatever the reason).

In the TS's case it was about resizing the virtual disk to a larger virtual disk. It also does this by cloning the original disk first before it is extended.

If you use a split disk scheme it can do this per disk slice.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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mauricev
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

My understanding is that there are two kinds of virtual disks, thin and thick. For a thin disk, it shouldn't need to clone because it doesn't need to change anything except a number indicating the maximum. For a thick disk, the disk is set to the actual size of the maximum, so here it would need to clone to avoid destroying the original such something go awry in resizing. This implies that Fusion disks are thick but that's not the behavior I'm seeing in day to day operation. They act as thin disks except when you want to resize their maximum.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Monolithic disks can be thin or thick, just like split disks...

It is not common for a Fusion virtual disk to be thick, but it is possible by ticking the "pre-allocate disk space" checkbox.

The most common and generally perceived best format for a virtual machine disk on a hosted platform such as VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation is: split disk, non pre-allocated

Reasons being flexibility and best chances or recovery if things go awry.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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FosiAlpanama
Contributor
Contributor

I have just received this message on VMware Workstation; the point is that you will need at least the same free available HD space than the vmdk occupies to expand it. Moving to another HD with this free space (in my case, 350 GB of VMDK, need to expand it to 400 GB, free HD space of 333 GB, the operation failed, VMDK moved to another HD with 800 GB available and expand operation worked) solved my issue.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

.. which is why we -most of the regulars helping out at this forum- recommend people to use a split disk scheme on VMware desktop products so that you do not need that much free space and do not bump into this kind of issue so easily.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
FosiAlpanama
Contributor
Contributor

I did not know about this requirement for single files. I will keep in mind.

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