virtualbox.org

Hello everyone,

I am trying to cut space on my VDI file to be able to save it on a DVD (4,7Gb) but i have a problem ...



Guest : Windows XP SP3 / NTFS partition

1) I've defragmented the partition, the VDI file went from 5Gb to 6Gb ...

2) I've used SDelete to "zero" out the free space on my drive has explained here :
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... ht=vditool
The VDI file went from 6Gb to 7,8Gb ....

So now my question is simple : how to get my VDI file back to around 3,2Gb (the actual size used on this partition)

Do i have to defrag the partition under Windows and copy the whole partition to a new VDI file with gParted


Thx for any help

use CloneVDI to compact it

Defragmenting makes a filesystem more efficient (speed wise), not more compact - so your first observation is no surprise. Sdelete is a preprocessing step which you use prior to using VBoxManage to compact the VDI... and again the fact that no compaction is observed until you run the actual compaction step, is also not a surprise.

Also, getting your advice from an ancient thread assumes that things have not moved on since then, when in fact they have. These days, the simplest and fastest way to compact a VDI is to use CloneVDI (see sticky in Windows Hosts forum), in which case the sdelete step is not necessary. Defragging prior to using CloneVDI is not necessary either, although it may sometimes gain you a few percent.

Don't expect miracles. However you do it, compaction is not compression. The drive can't easily become smaller than the data it contains, so to get the VDI file much smaller you usually have to identify the biggest space hogging files that you don't absolutely need - and delete them. Then compact. Of course to do this you need to know what files you need and what you can delete. You can google for that across the web.

Thanks for the advice. I used VBoxManager to clone the vdi file, it went back to 3,4Gb !

The vmdk file after export is even smaller : 1,8Go

Under Linux as root :

And why go to root? The action is done on your own files, so you don't need root privileges. Run VBoxManage as your normal user.

Mmmm ... I don't know but I had some right errors doing it without being root so ...