itadminhelp

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If Ever I need to shrink a drive traditionally Ive used the standalone VMware converted and done a V2V migration, then set it to resize the drives as it clones. The draw back of this is new need the space for the new 'target' VM of course.<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000185" rel="ugc">Heres me doing that</a></b> back in v5, but the procedure is still the same. (must update that to version 6!)<br />
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If Ever I need to shrink a drive traditionally Ive used the standalone VMware converted and done a V2V migration, then set it to resize the drives as it clones. The draw back of this is new need the space for the new 'target' VM of course.

Heres me doing that [https://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000185] back in v5, but the procedure is still the same. (must update that to version 6!)

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Andrew beat me to it!<br />
<br />
P
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Hi Andrew,<br><br>Thanks for your detailed but to the point description.<br>I ended up adding a new drive of smaller size and copying data instead of a shrinking drive.<br><br>Saying that I learnt a lot from your article.(that was best I have seen in Experts Exchange so far) <br>Thanks,<br><br>
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Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your detailed but to the point description.
I ended up adding a new drive of smaller size and copying data instead of a shrinking drive.

Saying that I learnt a lot from your article.(that was best I have seen in Experts Exchange so far)
Thanks,



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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
This VMware environment<br />
<br />
E drive of my server/VM is 1.2TB with 900 GB free space (Just 300 GB used after deleted my folders) <br />
<br />
My client wants us to shrink(or reduce the capacity of E drive ) to 500 GB.<br />
<br />
Storage is coming from SAN.<br />
E drive is labeled as Disk 1 Basic. <br />
This is used for shared drive <br />
The server is Windows 2012 r2 operating system<br />
<br />
I realized that it is not as easy as extending disk.<br />
<br />
How can I complete this task?
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This VMware environment

E drive of my server/VM is 1.2TB with 900 GB free space (Just 300 GB used after deleted my folders) 

My client wants us to shrink(or reduce the capacity of E drive ) to 500 GB.

Storage is coming from SAN.
E drive is labeled as Disk 1 Basic. 
This is used for shared drive 
The server is Windows 2012 r2 operating system

I realized that it is not as easy as extending disk.

How can I complete this task?

Shrink/reduce  VM disk capacity on the server

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

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2012 is the first version of Windows Server to have no support for Itanium-based computers since Windows NT 4.0. Windows Server 2012, now in its second release (Windows Server 2012 Release 2) includes Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter, and does not support IA-32 or IA-64 processors.

Windows Server 2012

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.