virtualbox.org

Hello,
Another newbie question. I'm running VirtualBox 4.2.8 with extensions on a Windows 7 pc. I have created a guest XP machine that works great for me. When I initially setup the virtual machine, I set the virtual C: drive at 50GB. In the VirtualBox interface Storage section it displays Controller: IDE then IDE Primary Master: CyberPowerClone.vdi (Normal, 50.29 GB). I will be installing VirtualBox on a new Windows 7 computer and moving this current vdi to its "final" destination on that new PC. I am concerned that the initial 50 GB virtual disk will be too small and would like to increase it to 150 GB. Since I'm a newbie and have no experience dealing with a VirtualBox command line interface/commands, I see posted here information on the CloneVDI tool. I read in its description that it provides a visual user interface and it includes a function to resize the virtual disks. Will installing and running this tool on the Host Windows 7 pc allow me to increase the guest virtual C: drive from its current 50 GB to 150 GB? Is this the "best" way for a newbie to accomplish this objective or should I attempt it from a command line? I have already copied the current VDI file to an external USB drive as a "backup". Thank you for your help and please excuse the newbie ignorance.
OmaSteak

Yes, CloneVDI will do the job, and yes I believe it's the easiest tool for a newbie. Just make sure you haven't used snapshots.

Having said that, 50GB is usually more than enough for any XP VM. My own XP VMs use 32GB or 64GB (and the latter is close enough to your 50GB that I wouldn't bother resizing). My heavily used XP host with all kinds of junk installed has a 120GB boot drive, with barely just over 32GB used. 32GB is really a lot of data. The only thing that can really fill up that kind of space fast is uncompressed video clips (for editing) and virtual disk files (or backup disk images). People say that 3D CAD files can be big too, but I have no experience of them. I would say: you can always resize your drive, so you may as well leave it until it gets to be (say) 75% full. No point in worrying before then.

Thank you again MPack for the extremely helpful reply. While I won't be storing lots of video files, etc. on the guest XP virtual machine, I do store quite a bit of tick-by-tick stock quote data for analysis and backtesting purposes. Hence my concern that I may approach the 50 GB virtual C: drive size at some point after I move from the current temporary Windows 7 host to a new Windows 7 host pc. I did download the CloneVDI zip file from the link on the posting in this forum to the host Windows 7 pc. I'll check it out later on the Windows 7 host pc. Thanks again for the most helpful reply.
OmaSteak

If that stock quote stuff is basic 1D time series data then I would lay odds that it really shouldn't take up a lot of space by modern standards. A handful of GBs at the very most. One stock price sampled continuously at 1 min intervals, 24hours/day for 10 years, 32bit integer samples (ie. stored as cents/pennies), would need 20MB (and that is ignoring the great potential for compression in such highly correlated data). 1GB(1024MB) could store 51 such time series.

Edit:  Oh, I forgot to mention that you could also simply add a big 2nd hard drive to the existing VM. That is what I do on physical PCs. As it happens my day job involves storing lots of uncompressed video clips on my PC as test data, so my host has a 1TB 2nd drive for those files. The original idea was that the boot drive would be easier to back up, except that the IT people at work insist on backing up the data drive too, even though all of the data is static and already backed up manually. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Thanks again MPack. The idea of adding a second, larger virtual hard drive to the XP virtual machine hadn't occurred to me. I'll check it out. I did checkout CloneVDI and I think the "best" newbie solution for me is to use it to increase the current XP virtual disk from 50 GB to 100 GB, if for nothing but some increased feeling of newbie security/stability.

Fair enough. When using CloneVDI, and since it's an XP guest, just make sure to tick both the "Increase disk size" and "Increase partition size" options, which will mean you don't have to do any postprocessing except mount the clone in a VM.