Can someone help me with this linked clone and VMEM file issue.

[vmman34]

Hi,

I have created some linked clones from a base VM and everything is great until I turn them on and I notice that it creates a VMEM file equal to the size of the machines RAM.

This isn't ideal because it adds to the size of the VM and then its size on disk can go from eg. 450MB to 8.5GB. Providing I have set the VM to use 8GB RAM.

Now multiply that by 5 VMs and then all of a sudden I could be adding an additional 42.5GB to the disk.

What I would like to know is this normal behaviour for running linked clones, or is there anything that you can can do about it?

I know it's still smaller than a full clone, but it means I will have equate for the extra storage space if I can't do anything about it.

Thanks

[ThompsG · Accepted solution]

Hi vmman34​,

Here is how to disable them:

1. Locate a file called settings.ini located in C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation (OS dependant)
2. Open in Notepad (or similar) and add the following line:

mainMem.useNamedFile = FALSE

   3.  Restart your virtual machines and the file should be gone.

Kind regards.

[vmman34]

Thanks ThompsG​

That has worked and has reduced their overall size on disk.

[ThompsG]

Woohoo - great to hear!

[continuum]

this tweak is not free of charge - you will use way more RAM and the system could slow down if you run too many of these VMs side by side.

[vmman34]

continuum​

Hi I was thinking about that when I implemented it.

The explanation said that the VM will use the hosts RAM and Page File.

So you are right, it could be a problem if I was running a lot of VMs.

But i'm currently short on disk space and I don't want to be adding around 8GB per VM.

I have started them all up and tI cant see that there is a significant overhead on my Servers memory. So things are looking fairly good for now.

I could always revert back to using the .VMEM disk method once the price of larger SSDs come down lol. :smileylaugh:

[continuum]

Read more about this topic here:
VMware Continuum - How to assign more RAM to VMs than available ...
VMware Continuum - Tuning guide - finetuning memory
VMware Continuum - Tuning guide - setup the host for expected usage ...
I wrote that several versions ago but most of it still applies
Ulli