VMWare ESXi 6.0 - Reducing Guest OS disk size

[CHiLL]

We have previously increased a second hard drive on a Windows Server 2012 VM by 1.5TB. It turns out that this space isn't required and we are now running out of space on our virtual SAN for that host. I'd like to recover all or some of that space to alleviate the space issues, but I can't seem to. Server 2012 sees that there is 1.5TB unallocated space on the disk, but when I try to reduce the disk size in the VM settings, it won't let me go below the space it already has allocated.

 

Has anybody come across this before, and how can I reclaim this space?!

[Davit2005]

Is it jus files on the second disk or has it got application data i.e. SQL??

[Chuckster]

You're going to have to edit the vmdk file to reduce the filesize. Here's how to do is: https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12938/HOW-TO-Shrink-a-VMware-Virtual-Machine-Disk-VMDK-in-15-minutes.html

[howartp]

Migrate it to another datastore, but set it as THIN provisioned in the migrate wizard.

 

This will recreate it thin, at the max size it needs to contain the existing data.

 

You can then inflate it back to normal size afterwards.

 

Peter

[CHiLL]

Is it jus files on the second disk or has it got application data i.e. SQL??

The disk contains shared applications and files which are live.

 

You're going to have to edit the vmdk file to reduce the filesize. Here's how to do is: https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12938/HOW-TO-Shrink-a-VMware-Virtual-Machine-Disk-VMDK-in-15-minutes.html

Alright, cheers. I'll take a look at that.

 

 

 

Migrate it to another datastore, but set it as THIN provisioned in the migrate wizard.

 

This will recreate it thin, at the max size it needs to contain the existing data.

 

You can then inflate it back to normal size afterwards.

 

Peter

OK, I'll have a look at that too, cheers.