VMWare Fusion Snapshots >> Alternate Physical Drive

[jrreedy16]

All,

Is there a way to change a preference in Fusion so that all of the snapshots are saved to a different physical drive on my machine? If not, is there a way to move them to a different physical drive then point the reference from the library to that virtual machine without messing anything up?

[WoodyZ]

While it's technically possible to have snapshots placed outside of the target Virtual Machine's Package it's not advisable and you can move the target Virtual Machine Package to another location and run it from there. Shutdown, not suspend, the target Virtual Machine and close VMware Fusion and then moved the target Virtual Machine Package to its new location and then double-click it after the move is complete and answer "I moved it" when prompted and it will start and be added to the Virtual Machine Library and you can then delete the original entry on the Virtual Machine Library that's not valid anymore.

[jrreedy16]

Thanks for the tip!

Why do you not advise moving the target to another physical drive? I'm finding that the snapshots are taking up a lot of room on my boot drive and rather than have to keep deleting them to make room for new ones I'd rather put them on a different internal drive used for storage, iTunes & iPhoto libraries, etc.

[WoodyZ]

There is no Fusion GUI to separate base disk from snapshot disks and what I don't recommend is separating the files that comprise the Virtual Machine and recommend leaving them all in the original Package however running the Virtual Machine from an alternate location is fine. I run most of mine from an external FireWire drive. The reason I said it technically possible to have in separate locations the base disk and the snapshot disks is because it is however it is something you have to do totally manually including editing the appropriate files and manage them so as not to break the Virtual Machine and unless you're an expert at this sort of thing then it's just an accident waiting to happen so leave everything bundled in the Virtual Machine's Package and move the Package elsewhere where you have more room to operate.