virtualbox.org

Running VirtualBox v3.2.8
Host is Win7 64Bit

Guest OS is Windows 2008R2
Sata Controller with a 30Gig Dynamic Expanding Virtual Disk - Actual Size is 10.73Gig

The issue is that within the Windows OS reports there is only 3.03Gig Free of 29.8Gig although the actual disk size is 10.73Gig
This after an install of SQL Server 2008R2 and Microsoft Service Manager

I have run both defrag and sdelete on the guest OS - no change.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Do you have any snapshots? Then the data will be stored in the snapshot and the base VDI won't grow. Take the properties of the C: drive inside the VM to see it's own consumption. If that says it's using 30 GB, it's using 30 GB. I don't believe that Windows 2008 R2 + SQL Server 2008 + Service Manager use less than 10 GB. A base installation of the OS itself will use almost 7 GB alone. SQL isn't a small program either.

I would also point out that running sdelete - as an isolated step - is totally counter-productive from a disk space used pov. It will do nothing visible in the guest, and on the host it will cause your latest snapshot to grow to its maximum size, which is 30GB in your case. The only value of sdelete is as a preparation for cloning the drive using "VBoxManage clonehd".