CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

[mpack]

ty

[bamim2]

It appears that you have heard MANY Thanks already, but I am of the firm believe that one can NEVER hear too many "Thank You"s (or at least it's pretty hard to do), so I too THANK YOU very much. A GREAT tool. VERY Easy to use & I learned a great deal by reading your release notes. One last "YOU ROCK" & I'm outta here ...

~THX ~

[mpack]

Thanks very much to you too. Yes, it is nice sometimes to hear something other than complaints - but still, it could get pretty tedious for everyone if that was all this thread consisted of. I guess I'm saying that I'm grateful for the occasional spontaneous thanks, but I hope people don't feel duty bound to post a "me too".

[Beppler]

First, thanks for this great tool.

Now, I made an installer script (for a per user installation) using Inno Setup and want to contribute it to you.

To generate the installer, put the CloneVDI.iss with your sources and compile it using Inno Setup.

[mpack]

Thank you for the thought, but I see no need for an installer with this tool - it only consists of one stand-alone exe! The fact that it doesn't need to be installed is one of the things people like about it. Plus of course it would be less portable to Linux and OS X.

[easly1989]

Hello mpack
Just wanted to ask you if it is better to use your tool instead of the VirtualBox built-in Clone.

thanks in advance,
easly

[mpack]

Well, I'm hardly an unbiased observer... However, if your goal is to clone a VM then you should use the VirtualBox GUI feature (right click VM, select "Clone"). If you need to copy a VDI (or other disk) which VirtualBox knows about then again you should probably use the VirtualBox Media Manager "Copy" feature. If there's some reason that you can't use VirtualBox, or if you specifically want to use a CloneVDI feature (for compaction or resizing or optimization), then you should use CloneVDI.

When you need CloneVDI you'll know it!

I probably wouldn't bother to write CloneVDI today, but when I did it in 2009 a lot of the overlap features didn't exist in VirtualBox. CloneVDI does still have a niche as a disaster recovery, second source, and convenient optimization tool. I also think that CloneVDI's disk resize feature is far easier, safer and more capable than the in-place command-line-only equivalent provided by VBoxManage.

[easly1989]

Well i think i'll give it a try!

Anyway, using the function clonehd will also compact my vmdk disk while converting it to vdi?
On CloneVDI, if i don't check the compact checkbox, then the image will be only converted? (Or like VirtualBox also compact?

thanks in advance

[mpack]

Anyway, using the function clonehd will also compact my vmdk disk while converting it to vdi?

Yes in a sense, but VBoxManage compaction is only effective if you run sdelete/zerofree in the guest first, which may take a long time.

On CloneVDI, if i don't check the compact checkbox, then the image will be only converted? (Or like VirtualBox also compact?

CloneVDI's compaction feature is far superior to that found in VBoxManage. The main difference is that you don't need to run sdelete first, hence you save all that time. If CloneVDI's compact option is not set then it still does the more basic kind of compaction done by VBoxManage.

[mpack]

One way to avoid fragmentation problem in the host for the VDI files inside, is to run CloneVDI, supposing we are having Dynamic size for the VDI files. But for what size the VDI files have reached, do we have to consider to do this?

Avoid fragmentation on the host? I'm assuming then that the scenario is that the disk has grown in well separated bursts, hence may not be contiguous? In that case the surest cure is to run a defragmenter on the host. CloneVDI would be at best an approximate solution for that problem. And, there's not set moment at which it should be done. I defragment my host when I feel that disk performance has dropped. Most defragmenters will also give you a number for how much fragmentation exists, and will recommend whether a defrag is worthwhile or not.

CloneVDI defragments the block order in the VDI, and again there's no set moment to do it - I would do it when the dynamic size growth has settled to almost zero. If you are going to defrag your host then you should do it after running CloneVDI. Then you should run a defragmenter inside the guest.

[HuaMin]

Thanks Mpack.
Why would you do it when the dynamic size growth has settled to almost zero?

[mpack]

Because there's no point in defragmenting a small file, or a file that's still growing quickly.

[HuaMin]

But for instance, for one Vbox, inside which there is one Win 08 server, I don't think the relevant vdi file would grow quickly.

[mpack]

If it doesn't grow quickly then it doesn't have the fragmentation problem at all.

Really, I see no need for a long discussion: I've given my reasoning, but in the end you may use the tool as often or as little as you prefer.

[HuaMin]

Thanks. One other thing is, I used CloneVDI to clone one Vbox with Oracle linux 5.8 inside, which is working fine and is having around 680 GB in size, to one other place. After that, I created the new Vbox as usual, but when I started this new one, I got "Invalid image ...". What to do next?