This will depend on how the VM was initially created. If you have a 10 Gig VM disk, with 1 Gig of data, You're essentially only compressing 1G. The 9 free Gigs will be collapsed completely. So ratios look wicked. On the other hand, if your disk grows as needed, and you have 10 Gig of data in a 10 Gig disk, then compression will be lower as you're needing to compress the whole 10 Gig. So the ratio looks better.
Same if you create a test file. If you add 2 lines of random text, and then 400 Gigs of AAAAAAA, compression will be wicked. The 2 lines are compressed, and then it basically says "and add 1 jazillion capital As at the end." Empty space in a VM works the same, so compression ratios for the free space are almost 100%. Kev. -----Original Message----- From: Jon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:31 AM To: CLUG General Subject: Re: [clug-talk] Workshop plans Gustin Johnson wrote: > A poor mans snapshot is simply making a physical copy of the VMs > directory. This can be cumbersome to work with, as well as taking up > tons of disk space. I've actually found that VMs are uber-compressible. I don't think I've ever seen less than 50% compression and frequently more. Granted I generally work with small VMs as I try to keep the data separate out on the metal, but most of my VMs are under a GB when gzipped. J -- Key fingerprint: BDE0 DE52 B8C0 0CDF 7653 E5A2 D861 7877 0D3B 813E http://www.jonwatson.ca +1.403.770.2837 "Trying to learn to hack on a DOS or Windows machine or under MacOS is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast" - ESR _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
