Opened 15 years ago
Last modified 14 years ago
#3061 new enhancement
Add Virtual Disk Tasks to Virtual Media Manager
| Reported by: | Ryan Stonecipher-Fisher | Owned by: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Component: | virtual disk | Version: | VirtualBox 2.1.0 |
| Keywords: | vdi compact | Cc: | |
| Guest type: | other | Host type: | other |
Description
On a periodic basis one can save a fair deal of disk space on a host by running "VBoxManage modifyvdi [SomeVDI] compact". I would suggest that this documented but currently CLI-only feature be added to the Virtual Media Manager portion of the VirtualBox GUI. Being able to manually specify when to compact a .vdi file in the GUI would save a lot of hassle for less-CLI-savvy users.
To use such a feature one might: Open VirtualBox Open the Virtual Media Manager Select a Virtual Disk Image Click a "Compact" button in the toolbar
Integration of virtual disk image management into Guest Additions could suggest that the user "Compact" when the guest's reported disk usage is beneath some threshold of the actual disk usage of the .vdi file on the host. To use such a feature in a Windows guest one might: Install Guest Additions Guest Additions could run "dir" or some similar command in the background to get Windows' current free disk space estimate VirtualBox could compare Windows' reported free disk space to the space left on a virtual disk image (Maximum size - current .vdi file size) If the free space number differ significantly (say 20%) VirtualBox could, from within the guest, prompt the user to run a "Guest VDI Compaction Routine" VirtualBox could run "sdelete -c" in the background on the guest, send a shutdown signal after sdelete finishes, and then compact the .vdi once the guest is shut down
This second approach would be much more OS-specific and may not work (or be necessary) with all operating systems and file systems. It would, however, simplify things for former Windows users who most run Windows for a handful of programs which have no practical replacements on the host platform.
I think this is an excellent suggestion - another thing the media manager should do is to report on how much space is free on the drive hosting each VDI/ VMDK file [would need to be subtle about how to handled RAW VMDK files]. This is particularly important when creating thinly provisioned VDI files, as you can end up over committing the available space on the host drive. I don't even want to think what will happen to a Windows VM when the VDI file thinks it has space to grow into but the host drive has no more free space.... ouch!