Host disk space "disappeared"

Before installing PD my Mac had 175GB free space. After installing, and starting/restarting VM a few times to test, I checked Mac disk space and it's down to 29GB! The Win 10 VM is about 45GB ON AN EXTERNAL DRIVE! What in the world has happened to all of my space? I have only one snapshot.

 

Hi @BillB4 , did you check if the Windows virtual machine is occupying more than 45GB on your Mac Hard disk?

 

Yes, that's why I said, "The Win 10 VM is about 45GB on an external drive." That's the size of the of the VM, not the Windows "C" drive.

 

Arun, problem solved! It was not, in face, a Parallels issue. I run PD on a laptop running Time Machine. At the time I installed PD and created a VM, i was not connected to my external drive for TM. So, after creating the VM, TM created a LOCAL backup on the laptop. Then after upgrading the O/S from Win 8.1 to 10, I renamed the VM from Win8.1 to Win10. Then TM made another LOCAL backup, including the "new" one which had a different filename, right! Then I decided to move the location to my OneDrive. See the problem? It wasn't until today that the old LOCAL backups got deleted and (see it coming...) my disk space has dropped back down to 170GB free! This would not have happened if I had turned off LOCAL TM backups in the first place till I settled down. Maybe the description of this issue can be simplified and turned into a FAQ for others. Thanks.

 

Thank you for sharing the issue and how it got resolved. This information will help other users who will face similar issue.