Anyone else having huge file sizes with VMware 3.0?

[Kaido]

Upgraded to VMware Fusion 3.0.0. Fresh install on Snow Leoard 10.6.1. Did a clean install of XP Professional SP3. Installed my apps, did a defrag, then shrunk the VM file using VMware settings. Currently sitting at 5gb on C:\ vs a 20gb VM file:

http://j.mp/34Grjr

Makes absolutely no sense. I don't have any snapshots, I don't have auto-protect turned on, it's all a fresh, clean install. Even Time Machine is disabled; I don't get it! How does your C:\ size compare to the actual VM file's size? (you can find it out by going into Documents > Virtual Machines on your Mac drive if you have VMware Fusion 3 installed).

Kinda weird. The actual file is 4x the size of my virtual boot drive.

 

[Kmax82]

Ok.. I checked mine again, and wow.. mine was up to 17 GB. Not cool. Shrinking again, to see what happens this time.

EDIT: Shrink finished and only took about 3.5 GB off of it. This is totally strange.

 

[Kaido]

Ahah - go into VMware tools in Windows (the tray app that was installed) and shrink the drive from WITHIN Windows. Takes a long time, but it took me from 20gb to 8gb.

 

[ViRGE]

Ahah - go into VMware tools in Windows (the tray app that was installed) and shrink the drive from WITHIN Windows. Takes a long time, but it took me from 20gb to 8gb.

Yep, that's the key. You have to shrink from within Windows in order to reduce internal fragmentation and get everything pushed to the beginning of the virtual drive so that it moves to the beginning of the image file. Only then can VMware then shrink the image file. It can't edit the file system from outside the OS.

 

[Kaido]

Yep, that's the key. You have to shrink from within Windows in order to reduce internal fragmentation and get everything pushed to the beginning of the virtual drive so that it moves to the beginning of the image file. Only then can VMware then shrink the image file. It can't edit the file system from outside the OS.

What's weird is that later, my file went down to less than 5 gigs - about the same size as C:! I've never had to do shrinking of any kind with previous VMware releases, so that's weird.

 

[manly]

They must have changed the default virtual disk allocation scheme.

Is Fusion 3 snappier than v2? Fusion 2 is on sale at buy.com right now for $20 AR, and it qualifies for the free upgrade. Too bad my old GPU doesn't support Win7 Aero in a VM. 🙁

 

[James Bond]

They must have changed the default virtual disk allocation scheme.

Is Fusion 3 snappier than v2? Fusion 2 is on sale at buy.com right now for $20 AR, and it qualifies for the free upgrade. Too bad my old GPU doesn't support Win7 Aero in a VM. 🙁

Which GPU do you need?

 

[manly]

Which GPU do you need?

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10959

 

[Kmax82]

Is Fusion 3 snappier than v2?

I personally think so. Also, I've noticed dramatically less CPU/resource use when idle. I used to have to suspend my VMs when I wasn't actively using them because they would noticeably slow down my system. However, with v3 I just leave 'em open and they allocate as they need it.

 

[Kaido]

They must have changed the default virtual disk allocation scheme.

Is Fusion 3 snappier than v2? Fusion 2 is on sale at buy.com right now for $20 AR, and it qualifies for the free upgrade. Too bad my old GPU doesn't support Win7 Aero in a VM. 🙁

Hmm. I want to say yes. I did a fresh XP install for Fusion 3 and it was WAY fast. It's kind of hard to say that it's snapper than 2, because XP in a VM is more or less instant on my machine, as far as the menus and stuff goes. I would say that it is faster, yes. It feels slightly faster, and all the functions (booting, pausing, resuming) are definitely faster (but it's already...pretty fast. lol). Fusion 2 is an excellent purchase - it is stable and fast. I don't really see the need to upgrade to Fusion 3, other than I'm a nerd :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

I personally think so. Also, I've noticed dramatically less CPU/resource use when idle. I used to have to suspend my VMs when I wasn't actively using them because they would noticeably slow down my system. However, with v3 I just leave 'em open and they allocate as they need it.

Yeah, I think I've noticed that too...I have v2 on my old drive, and v3 on my new drive, and I was comparing yesterday - v2 seems to lag the rest of the system a bit, whereas v3 seems pretty transparent.

Ideally I'd like to shove my VM's onto a separate SATA SSD :awe:

 

[Kaido]

Ahah - go into VMware tools in Windows (the tray app that was installed) and shrink the drive from WITHIN Windows. Takes a long time, but it took me from 20gb to 8gb.

Yup. And it seems fairly stable - the file will jump up a gig or two, sometimes 3, but never back up to 17 or 20 gigs. 3.0.0 bug. Oh well.