No VMware Workstation 10, posso ir ao menu VM, Gerenciar, "Limpar Discos ..." e, magicamente, ele recuperará uma tonelada de espaço.
O que não entendo é como a pasta resultante da minha VM agora é de apenas 80,1 GB. Se eu inicializo o Windows na VM e vejo o uso do disco, são cerca de 91 GB. Como isso é possível?
Talvez algo tenha feito um arquivo dentro do sistema de arquivos que, na verdade, consiste em muitos zeros? Se esse fosse o caso, o uso do sistema de arquivos interno poderia ser maior do que o VMDK externo que o contém, porque o VMware pode detectar execuções de zeros e armazená-las essencialmente de maneira mais eficiente dentro do arquivo que representa o VMDK. Nem todos os dados são iguais ...
When you delete files from your virtual machine, the disk space occupied by those files is not immediately returned to your host system. If a virtual disk has such empty space, you can use the Clean up disks command to return that space to the hard drive on a Microsoft Windows host.
The Clean up disks command is similar to the Compact command in the Workstation virtual machine settings and the shrink command provided by VMware Tools. The Clean up disks command has these advantages:
You can use the Clean up disks command with virtual machines that have snapshots or are linked clones or parents of a linked clone.
The Clean up disks command reclaims more disk space than the Compact command. The Clean up disks command reclaims disk space from the current state of the virtual machine, from any powered-off snapshots, and from any powered-on snapshots where the guest operating system is Windows XP or later and you have installed a version of VMware Tools that is compatible with Workstation 8 or later.
Unlike the Defragment command and the shrink command provided by VMware Tools, the Clean up disks command does not require any extra disk space on the host. The Clean up disks command operates directly on the virtual disk (.vmdk) files.