How to reclaim disk space on ESXI 5.0

Question

I have a DELL R710 with ESXI 5.0. I've created a VM with 100GB thin provision. I deleted most of the data. Is it possible to shrink the VM folder on the ESXI? thanks! Dotan.

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 01 '13 at 11:12

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Use Storage vMotion to move it to another datastore as a thick eager zeroed VMDK then move it back to the original location as a thin one.

answered Aug 01 '13 at 11:12

Chopper3

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what if I'm working with free ESXI 5 (no vmoition) with only one Datastore? – edotan Aug 01 '13 at 11:30
You could probably use Converter, drop it to a new file then reimport it? Never tried it to be honest. – Chopper3 Aug 01 '13 at 12:14

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

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This answer explains how to do it https://serverfault.com/a/487550/15008

If you use a compressed filesystem eg. ZFS or thin provisioning over nfs then zeroing the blocks can be enough

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

Community

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answered Aug 01 '13 at 11:50

JamesRyan

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How to reclaim disk space on ESXI 5.0

2 Answers2