VMWare ESXi 5.5, thin provision still allocates full amount of space on disk

thin-provisioningvmware-esxi

I see a lot of questions and answers surrounding thin provisioning on VMWare ESXi but not exactly what I'm encountering. I am creating a brand new VM and specifying a 100GB thin provisioned hard disk. From all I've read, I'm expecting the physical size of the vmdk file to be less than 100GB. However, it is still creating a xxx-flat.vmdk that is 100GB.

I'm trying to set up a base system that I can then simply copy around and customize like I've done with VMWare Workstation in the past. Very easy! When I power up the copy, VMWare asks me if I've copied it, I answer "yes" and I'm off and running. However, with what appears to me to be a bug in ESXi 5.5, I'll be copying around a 100GB+ which means I'd be just about as fast to reinstall the OS every time I wanted a new instance.

Has anyone experienced this?

Best Answer

This is because thin-provisioned files in ESXi are sparse files. The method you're using to move them around won't preserve that thin attribute.

There are ways around this. Please see: Move VMware ESXi VM to new datastore - preserve thin-provisioning

Related Solutions

How to copy a Virtual Machine on VMWare ESXi 4 while maintaining Thin Provisioning

I get around this by making copies with the OVFtool from a command line. It isn't perfect, but it does the trick for me (note: ovftool is an app that runs on a linux system somewhere, which then connects to the ESXi host):

#Copy a VM to an OVF (must be turned off, but you can hotclone it to a new VM first if you have vCenter):
ovftool vi://USER:PASSWORD@ESXIHOSTIP/VMNAME TARGETDIR/TARGET.ovf

#Deploy an OVF to an ESX[i] server with thin disks:
ovftool --name="Name of new VM" -dm=thin -ds=TARGET-DATASTORE SOURCEFILE.ovf vi://USER:PASSWORD@ESXIHOSTIP/

You could also try ghettoCloneVM.pl, which is a tool to clone a VM on an ESX or ESXi server without vCenter (but the page says you have to have the "licensed" version of ESXi, not sure if that means the free version won't work). It looks like it has the ability to clone to a thin disk, so it might work for you. I haven't used this tool myself, but it is something to try.

Moving thin provisioned vmdk ESXi 5

You de-thinprovision, so to say, the machine, when you copy it off datastore using VMware GUI. Take a look at this VMware Communities thread for a solution.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to copy a Virtual Machine on VMWare ESXi 4 while maintaining Thin Provisioning

Moving thin provisioned vmdk ESXi 5

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