On Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 11:35 am, Flavio Vinicius penned
about "[vbox-users] Size of VDI files"
> Hello,
>
> Currently I am using VirtualBox and I have my guest operating system
> installed on a dynamical VDI file. When inside the guest the disk
> usage shows about 650mb, but the VDI file is close to 2GB (The image
> can expand up to 100GB). I no expert on virtualization and have only
> used virtualization products, such as virtual box, but this
> difference in sizes seems rather odd. Can anyone give me an insight
> on why this happens?
Hi Flavio,
My `guess' would be that you've installed software on this VM. During
the installation process, installation files are uncompressed, written
to a temporary area and at the end of the installation, they're
removed. This means that your VDI had to increase in size to
accommodate the temporary files. The file does not shrink
automatically.
Here's a cheesy ASCII chart of what I believe is happening:
|
| +
Space |
Used | +
in |
VDI | +
|
+-|------|--------|--------
1 2 3
Time
1) space used before installation. Say 500MB
2) space needed during installation of software. Say 800MB
Call this a `high-water mark'
3) new space requirement after installation: say 650MB
I hope that helps.
Cheers,
--
Pablo Sanchez - Blueoak Database Engineering, Inc
Ph: 819.459.1926 Toll free: 888.459.1926
Fax: 603.720.7723 (US) Text Page: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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