Reduce original VM size

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duaned

Bit poster
When I originally created my VM I made it much too large and I need to reduce the size by 15GB. I've read through the forums, which seem to suggest that i should use Parallels Compressor, but after reading through the .pdf file that came with the program this only looks as if it will compress the files that I have already created in the VM. And there appears to be no description of how I go about reducing the original size of my VM or no of a link to a forum where the process is described in detail?

Thanks.

Duane
 
Hello Duane,

You don't have to reduce your VM size as it takes just as much place on Mac side as much information you have written on your virtual hard disk. The size you defined for your VM when you created it indicates the maximum amount of information you can write on the VM.

Best regards,
Xenos
 
Thanks for your reply. However the problem is that the VM I originally created was far larger than I needed. So I have 35GB of hard drive dedicated to the VM but I"m only using 20GB sot the remaining 15GB is not being used and cannot be accessed by the Mac side. I gather from reading the the threads that this not and uncommon problem, but I have been unable to find a simple way of reducing the size of the VM to match the amount of data I need it for.
 
Duane, all your VM information is stored in the virtual hard disk - the .hdd file.
If you right click this file and choose "Get info", you will see that it only takes 20GB of Mac space.
You do not have to get rid of 15GB.

Best regards,
Xenos
 
I suspect my poor understanding of the terminology and my lack of being specific may be adding to the confusion between the two of us.

I think the thing I want to shrink is the .hdd file that I created originally. I do not remember specifically how large I told parallels to make it when it was created but if I get info on it, the .hdd file is close to 60Gb in size. However, within my VM, the virtual hard drive only has 18Gb of 35Gb used and 13Gb free space. My thinking was that if I could reduce the size of my .hdd at least the 13Gb, then that free space would be freed up for the mac to use. Perhaps my thinking is flawed? Additionally how is it possible that the .hdd file is so much larger than the size of used and free space on the drive? Is it possible that the 60Gb size of the .hdd file also includes the size of the networked drives which give access to the VM to data on my mac is included? If this is true then I have an 18Gb folder that takes up size on my Mac and is duplicated in the .hdd file.

It all seems very complicated and I appreciate any help you can provide me on this matter.

Thank you for your time.

Duane
 
would you buy a laptop with a 35 gb hard disk?

when I began to run out of space on my MacBoook Pro HD
I rushed out and bought a La Cie 800 external HD and moved all my images there.

I also cloned my 32 gb VM there and found I could run it from the firewire disk so I keep all my VM on external disks

I have the impression the MacBook runs better as a whole but cannot provide bookmarks to prove it

right now I am cleaning up my VM prior to cloning it twice and deleteing the old back ups (always use parellels >> Menu >> File >> to mange your clones)


Always keep your data in shared folders
never in My Document or My Images etc on the VM
- which policy means you will not lose data when a VM breaks and stops the clone expanding enormously

Both Windows and MacOS work best on HD which have at least 20% free space which the system may use for hidden temporary files

Hugh W
 
My MacBook Pro has a 160Gb but it is almost full which why I want to reduce the size of the .hdd. I agree with your suggestion with the shared folders and that is the way I have gone which is why my HD is full and my VM .hdd is empty. Unfortunately when I set it up I did not realize this is they I would use it. So the problem is that the .hdd file has an additionally 15-20Gb of space allocated to it that I can't access from the mac, and is not being used by the VM because I use shared folders. Therefore lowering the allocated memory to the .hdd would free up space for more the mac.

In terms of the external, I also have an external HD but I need the VM to be portable so it and all the shared folders need to live on the laptop. Who would have imagined 10 years ago that they would have 600Gb of data they needed to manage.

cheers duane
 
I'm having the same problem. Parallels is taking up 23 gig and I think that is way too much. i don't even have many items on parallels side. And many of the response don't seem to be answering or resolving the original poster problem. I think he explained as good as I could, but....

PLEASE HELP
 
Kerrej,

I have managed to solve the this problem, finally. The tool that actually solves this problem is Parallels Compressor. However, there is some sort of a glitch with parallels Compressor which does not let it work unless you have been merged all your snap shots. To merge snap shots and get your virtual hardisk ready for compression, go to the parallels application folder, in which you will find a program called "Parallels Image Tool". Run this program. In Image Tool, select the .hdd file you wish to compress--> Mange Disk properties-->Merge snapshots. This procedure can be lengthy. For me it only took about 2 hours but I have read reports of it taking 12 hours. This process actually freed up close to 30Gb of space on my machine and I didn't even know I had ever taken a snapshot.

Once this process is complete go to our parallels folder that contains all of your virtual machines and throw away all snapshot.xml files.

You should now be ready to Compress the Drive. Launch your VM. Parallels toolbar-->Action--> Run Parallels Compressor. This operation took another 2 hours for me, but I again I have heard this action can take a long time. I'm not really sure how this all works but it crunched my virtual HD down and freed another 20GB of space.

Good luck.
duane
 
Hello,

Duane, glad to know you managed to solve the problem. You could have used Disk Compacting Tool with similar result.

Kerrej, if you look through Parallels Desktop User Guide For Mac you will find out the following:

- Disk Compacting Tool cleans up the unused disk space on expanding virtual hard disks and cuts off the cleaned free space thus reducing the sizes of virtual hard disk image files in Mac OS X. We recommend that you use Disk Compacting Tool on your virtual machines from time to time to save space on the host hard disk. For more information refer to the Compacting Virtual Disk (page 244) topic.

- Parallels Compressor deletes temporary and unnecessary files, empties the Recycle Bin, performs disk defragmenting and disk compacting. Options can be selected. For details on Parallels Compressor, see the Using Parallels Compressor (page 246) chapter.

The thing I was trying to explain at the beginning is that you don't have to reduce your virtual hard disk size if it is just new and clean (Duane told that in her first post).

If you have written and then deleted some files on Windows side, you get the unused space on the virtual hard disk that should be compressed or compacted by the tools mentioned above.

If you have not deleted any files on Windows side yet, there is no unused space on your virtual hard disk, so you don't have to compact or compress it.

Best regards,
Xenos
 
Xenos,

I originally tried to use the disk compacting tool in the advanced settings of the Hard Disk in the Configuration editor as you had suggested. However, I kept getting an error message that would not let me compact the VM HD. As I recall the pop-up message said something about not being able to compress as long as there were snapshots present. I went through and made sure there were no snapshots but I continued to get the same error message. This is not an uncommon problem, in fact, there appear to be a lot of people experiencing this issue. Anyway, the solution to the snapshot issue came from using the image tool.

Kerrij,
I guess I forgot the last step. Yes, the compressor does free up additional space but to get the .hdd size reduced you will need to use the Compact command in the Configuration editor.

My apologies.
 
I have been going back and forth with support on this issue for over the last 2 weeks, I have scoured the PDF help documentation without success. I have used Compressor, the Acronis tools (which do not help unless I was trying to add a partition to my existing Windows VM), etc. I will check out the configuration editor options and see if I am able to get any further.
 
Ok,
I have tried using Compressor in advanced mode as well as the Image tool... No dice.

The VM has 32 GB allocated to it, and Windows indicated that there is about 16 GB available as free. The "Get Info" for the Win XP.hdd file indicates its size is just under 32 GB.

This is now becoming funny due to my interactions with support.
 
Last edited:
Please check how many hds files are in hdd bundle?
maybe old snaphosts?
Also please try to add 100 mb free unpartitioned space to virtual disk
and try Compact, from Hard Disk 1 - advanced
 
I'm having the exact same problem as chiasurf, right down to the point where the .hdd claims to occupy 32 GB, even though I have less than 8 GB used. I've tried using the image tool to compact it, but it's not helping much. In previous versions of Parallels it was much easier because I could just click on edit --> virtual machine ... if you could give me step-by-step instructions (in layman's terms, preferably :)) how to reduce the image size, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you!
 
Reduce VM Size

I would like an answer to this problem.

I have run defrag on my guest os and then ran parallels image tool to compact several times and nothing seems to drop the size. I do not have any snapshots and would like to remove the added space.

My guest os is only 23 gb but the vm file is roughly 60 gb. This is not appealing as I would like to back up the vm file and do not want to transfer the extra 30 gb everytime i do it. Any help would be appreciated.

I am using parallels 4 on MBP and windows xp.
 
With in parallels load up your VM go to Virtual Machine--> Run Parallels Compressor --> near the bottom of the list. For some reason it took me quite a while to find this.

took my 47 gig file to 17 gig. Gl
 
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