Origin and purpose of ".sav" files inside Snapshots folder

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
mpack
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Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
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Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Origin and purpose of ".sav" files inside Snapshots folder

Post by mpack »

xLoris wrote: My guess is that these .sav files are created during normal VM activity
No, RAM dumps are not "normal VM activity". These files are created in the circumstances already discussed above.

p.s. "VDI machine" is not correct. A VDI is just a disk image (i.e. storage). A PC consists of more than just the disk drive, it's the entire virtual PC that is considered "the machine". This isn't just a technicality: people who base their procedures on the bad assumption that the VDI is the only important file (because it's the largest) are exactly the people who get into these troubles.
kennyhyun
Posts: 2
Joined: 26. Jul 2023, 07:30

Re: Origin and purpose of ".sav" files inside Snapshots folder

Post by kennyhyun »

My guess is that these .sav files are created during normal VM activity and are not deleted because of sudden power failures on the hosting machine ... which happened quite often in 2021.

And I confirm that deleting those .sav files has no effect on the VM fuctionality.
That makes sense and I guess that's also happening in my machine.

Normal suspending (saving status) ended up with larger file than the left-behind files.

Hope there is some command to list up the registered sav files.

Thanks Loris for sharing

Kenny
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