So in effect the 'cut' will be made in the unallocated storage space, after the OS partition.Ģ. Providing that we DO NOT affect the existing partitions, this is a safe operation. OS Partition size after Shrink Operation.Īs can be clearly seen in the above screenshot, there is now an unallocated 19.5GB space on the virtual disk, in Step 2 the VMware virtual machine disk (VMDK) will be 'chopped', removing this unallocated storage space, and finally reducing the virtual machine disk (VMDK) to 20GB. The Disk Management utility scans the available file system, and reports a maximum size the OS partition can be reduce by, this is based on current file system usage.Įnter the figure 19.5 (GB) x 1024 = 19968 In this example the VMware virtual machine disk (VMDK) is 40GB, and we would like to reduce the size of the VMware virtual machine disk (VMDK) to 20GB. The above dialogue will briefly appear whilst the file system is queried. Right Click the Volume/Partition to shrink, and select Shrink. Select Disk Management, and select the partition you need to shrink. Right Click My Computer and Select Manage
Press Control-Alt-Delete to login to the virtual machine. Using an RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) connection or connect via the Console, using the vSphere Client, login to the virtual machine as an Administrator. HOW TO: Resize a VMware (VMDK) Virtual Disk