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vhd growing out of control

Source: microsoft.public.virtualserver
Sent: 05/22/2006
From: Dale Crowder
Message:

I have a vhd that I set to grow to 16 Gb, but has grown to 78 Gb? Has anyone
had to deal with this before. I have done some reading and see where you can
"zero out the drive" I'm guessing this is to zero out the unused protion of
the drive but I can't find any information on how to do that. When I inspect
the vhd I do not have to option to compact it, so I'm really in a hurt on
this. I just updated to r2, and put all the VMAdditions on, any advice would
be great. I have 7.3 Gb free, and loosing them quickly.
--
Thanks,

Dale

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Related Messages

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/22/2006
From: Steve Jain <noreply.-at-.essjae.com@>
Message:

On Mon, 22 May 2006 15:10:02 -0700, Dale Crowder
<(email address - cut out)> wrote:

From the thread "Maximum size of a Virtual hard disk not respected"

On Wed, 17 May 2006 15:30:12 -0700, "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]"
<(email address - cut out)> wrote:

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
I do not work for Microsoft.

Show quoted text

>I have a vhd that I set to grow to 16 Gb, but has grown to 78 Gb? Has anyone
>had to deal with this before. I have done some reading and see where you can
>"zero out the drive" I'm guessing this is to zero out the unused protion of
>the drive but I can't find any information on how to do that. When I inspect
>the vhd I do not have to option to compact it, so I'm really in a hurt on
>this. I just updated to r2, and put all the VMAdditions on, any advice would
>be great. I have 7.3 Gb free, and loosing them quickly.
>Do you have any backup software running on the host? We have seen this
>happen with certain backup agents - and we recommend that VHDs be excluded.
>If you exclude the VHDs from the host backup agent - this problem will
>go away. You can correct the current VHD by compacting it.
>
>Cheers,
>Benjamin Armstrong
>===============================
>Virtual machine Program Manager
>
>This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
>You assume all risk for your use.

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/23/2006
From: Dale Crowder
Message:

Thanks for your help steve, yes I am running backup exec. I've had problems
backing up the vhd file while the virtual server is running. But back to the
original. Is there a compress utility???? I do the inspect of the vhd but
under actions I do not have the option to compress or compact.
--
Thanks,

Dale

"Steve Jain" wrote:

Show quoted text

> On Mon, 22 May 2006 15:10:02 -0700, Dale Crowder
> <(email address - cut out)> wrote:
>
> >I have a vhd that I set to grow to 16 Gb, but has grown to 78 Gb? Has anyone
> >had to deal with this before. I have done some reading and see where you can
> >"zero out the drive" I'm guessing this is to zero out the unused protion of
> >the drive but I can't find any information on how to do that. When I inspect
> >the vhd I do not have to option to compact it, so I'm really in a hurt on
> >this. I just updated to r2, and put all the VMAdditions on, any advice would
> >be great. I have 7.3 Gb free, and loosing them quickly.
>
> From the thread "Maximum size of a Virtual hard disk not respected"
>
> On Wed, 17 May 2006 15:30:12 -0700, "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]"
> <(email address - cut out)> wrote:
>
> >Do you have any backup software running on the host? We have seen this
> >happen with certain backup agents - and we recommend that VHDs be excluded.
>
> >If you exclude the VHDs from the host backup agent - this problem will
> >go away. You can correct the current VHD by compacting it.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Benjamin Armstrong
> >===============================
> >Virtual machine Program Manager
> >
> >This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
> >You assume all risk for your use.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
> http://vpc.essjae.com/
> I do not work for Microsoft.
>

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/23/2006
From: "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Yes - select to inspect the VHD and compact it - and exclude your VHDs
from Veritas in the future.
--
Cheers,
Benjamin Armstrong
===============================
Virtual machine Program Manager

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.

Dale Crowder wrote:

Show quoted text

> Thanks for your help steve, yes I am running backup exec. I've had problems
> backing up the vhd file while the virtual server is running. But back to the
> original. Is there a compress utility???? I do the inspect of the vhd but
> under actions I do not have the option to compress or compact.

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/24/2006
From: Dale Crowder
Message:

Figured it out. The hint should have been since I didn't have the compact
option under action. The disk was created as a differential disk instead of
a dynamic disk. So I have to merge them with the source then I can do the
compact. Now I just have to find 85 gigs to merge them on.

--
Thanks,

Dale

"Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" wrote:

Show quoted text

> Yes - select to inspect the VHD and compact it - and exclude your VHDs
> from Veritas in the future.
> --
> Cheers,
> Benjamin Armstrong
> ===============================
> Virtual machine Program Manager
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
> You assume all risk for your use.
>
> Dale Crowder wrote:
> > Thanks for your help steve, yes I am running backup exec. I've had problems
> > backing up the vhd file while the virtual server is running. But back to the
> > original. Is there a compress utility???? I do the inspect of the vhd but
> > under actions I do not have the option to compress or compact.
>

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/31/2006
From: "Edgardo Balansay" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

"Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...

What if we where to 'shut down' the guest OS first, and then use Veritas to
backup
the VHD? (Fixed disk ) Would this reduce the possibility of having the
guest OS
VHD grow 'out of control'?

Thanks!
Edgardo

Show quoted text

> Yes - select to inspect the VHD and compact it - and exclude your VHDs
> from Veritas in the future.

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/31/2006
From: "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

That is fine - but you need to disable the active backup that Veritas does.
--
Cheers,
Benjamin Armstrong
===============================
Virtual machine Program Manager

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.

Edgardo Balansay wrote:

Show quoted text

> "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
> news:(email address - cut out)...
>> Yes - select to inspect the VHD and compact it - and exclude your VHDs
>> from Veritas in the future.
>
> What if we where to 'shut down' the guest OS first, and then use Veritas to
> backup
> the VHD? (Fixed disk ) Would this reduce the possibility of having the
> guest OS
> VHD grow 'out of control'?
>
> Thanks!
> Edgardo
>
>

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 05/31/2006
From: Flair
Message:

Hi @all,

are there any issues with using Data Protection Manager to store the vhd's
on a "safe" side?

thx
Ralf Dietrich

....

Show quoted text

> > this reduce the possibility of having the
> > guest OS VHD grow 'out of control'?

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 06/01/2006
From: "Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

I do not know explicitly about this - but I believe it is fine (from
talking to the DPM team)
--
Cheers,
Benjamin Armstrong
===============================
Virtual machine Program Manager

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.

Flair wrote:

Show quoted text

> Hi @all,
>
> are there any issues with using Data Protection Manager to store the vhd's
> on a "safe" side?
>
> thx
> Ralf Dietrich
>
> ...
>>> this reduce the possibility of having the
>>> guest OS VHD grow 'out of control'?
>

Re: vhd growing out of control

Sent: 06/01/2006
From: Flair
Message:

Hi Ben,

thank you - I'll try this in my testing area next month

Ralf

"Ben Armstrong [MSFT]" wrote:

Show quoted text

> I do not know explicitly about this - but I believe it is fine (from
> talking to the DPM team)
> --
> Cheers,
> Benjamin Armstrong
> ===============================
> Virtual machine Program Manager
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
> You assume all risk for your use.
>
> Flair wrote:
> > Hi @all,
> >
> > are there any issues with using Data Protection Manager to store the vhd's
> > on a "safe" side?
> >
> > thx
> > Ralf Dietrich
> >
> > ...
> >>> this reduce the possibility of having the
> >>> guest OS VHD grow 'out of control'?
> >
>

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