<div>
Many thanks for your replies Guys..<br />
<br />
@Andrew: neither VCenter nor VMWare Converter are available :( <br />
<br />
@Mr Tortur: that sounds like a good plan, thanks.<br />
<br />
Maybe I worded my question a little badly - it is more a question whether a move/copy of the entire VM was necessary, whether I could just copy the vmdk (and then copy it back) or if indeed a copy/move is at all necessary :)<br />
<br />
Thanks,<br />
Chris
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Closing, because no updates lately (2 weeks) and I think the question has been answered.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Hi Guys,<br />
We have a VM running under ESXi5.1 with a second vmdk (so NOT the system disk) which has been defined way too large.<br />
As we now need some of this &quot;wasted&quot; space back, I followed the excellent instructions in the following article: <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12938/HOW-TO-Shrink-a-VMware-Virtual-Machine-Disk-VMDK-in-15-minutes.html" rel="ugc">https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12938/HOW-TO-Shrink-a-VMware-Virtual-Machine-Disk-VMDK-in-15-minutes.html</a><br />
<br />
All went well until I realised that the article says that we need to migrate/copy the VM to another datastore.. Hmm.. I only have 1 datastore and it's too full to allow a copy of this entire VM..<br />
<br />
Is it necessary to copy the entire machine? Could I just copy the 1 vmdk?<br />
Secondly, does it really need to be a separate datastore, or just another directory?<br />
Do we actually need to copy/migrate it at all? (Someone in the comments of the other thread suggested that a simple reboot of the machine reduced the reported disk capacity after making the necessary edits).<br />
<br />
Thanks in advance.<br />
Chris
</div>
</div>


Hi Guys,
We have a VM running under ESXi5.1 with a second vmdk (so NOT the system disk) which has been defined way too large.
As we now need some of this "wasted" space back, I followed the excellent instructions in the following article: 

https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12938/HOW-TO-Shrink-a-VMware-Virtual-Machine-Disk-VMDK-in-15-minutes.html

All went well until I realised that the article says that we need to migrate/copy the VM to another datastore.. Hmm.. I only have 1 datastore and it's too full to allow a copy of this entire VM..

Is it necessary to copy the entire machine? Could I just copy the 1 vmdk?
Secondly, does it really need to be a separate datastore, or just another directory?
Do we actually need to copy/migrate it at all? (Someone in the comments of the other thread suggested that a simple reboot of the machine reduced the reported disk capacity after making the necessary edits).

Thanks in advance.
Chris

Shrink vmdk without additional storage space ESXi5.1

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. In addition to local storage devices like CD and DVD readers, hard drives and flash drives, solid state drives can hold enormous amounts of data in a very small device. Cloud services and other new forms of remote storage also add to the capacity of devices and their ability to access more data without building additional data storage into a device.

Storage

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.