I understand (and I agree) that there is no need to be 'alarmed' when the VDI file dimensions get quite bigger than the actual usage of a dynamic disk. I found this old thread, which mostly matches the question I wanted to ask, so I'm appending here instead of opening a new topic. Sep 2008, 17:09 Primary OS: MS Windows 10 VBox Version: PUEL Guest OSses: Mostly XP The latter are completely pointless in a VM, but people have done it anyway! mpack Site Moderator Posts: 37013 Joined: 4. However, beware of any kind of guest process which involves writing to every sector of the disk, e.g. However after not very long the chances of hitting a new sector will reduce to almost nothing, and the dynamic drive will have hit the perfect size for your system.

When a VM is new then almost every write to the disk will be to a previously unused sector, so a dynamic drive will appear to grow in size alarmingly. down to the min size needed to hold the guests files, discarding space used by deleted files.īut, as Perry says, there's really no need to be alarmed. And, if host disk space is an issue for you, then look into CloneVDI to compact the host file, i.e. Just as long as you remember that the guest's opinion of 'used space' can only be a guide as to what space the file takes on the host. Mar 2013, 17:04 Primary OS: MS Windows 8 VBox Version: OSE other Guest OSses: Win 2012 Server, Win 8, Linux Ubuntu, Linux CentOS Should I assume that the actual used space is what Ubuntu is showing, or what Windows/VirtualBox is showing? What will happen if the vdi file gets to be larger than 100GB in this case? Is the dynamicly allocated storage option the best to use or should I use a set disk size? Is there any way to defrag / optimize the vbox image so its reduced to actual size again? Windows file system: VDI file in the machine's directory shows: 56,903,060KB VirtualBox Machine Settings: Shows Virtual Size: 100GB, Actual Size: 54.27GB, Details: Dynamically allocated storage. Ubuntu Disk Analyzer: Main Volume shows 8.4GB / 104.6 GB

After a few weeks of using, I'm noticing the vbox file growing, but the space used within the Ubuntu file system is not increasing much. When creating the machine, I chose a 100GB dynamic disk which grows in size as more data is added.

Hi all - I've installed Ubuntu 64 Bit on a Windows 8 host using VirtualBox and am finding discrepancies between the hard disk space used in the Ubuntu file system vs the Windows or VirtualBox file system.

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