Parallels For Mac Resize Hard Drive Space
- Parallels For Mac Resize Hard Drive Space
- Manage Hard Drive Space Mac
- Parallels For Mac Resize Hard Drive Space Mac
Native hard drives fill up pretty fast, so with the default size of Parallels Desktop virtual machines (64 GB for most OSes), you might have to shrink your VM during or after setup. On the flipside, users with the latest Mac devices may want to increase the size of their virtual machine(s) for a bigger value. There are things you can do: 1) Copy the.vmdk over to Linux/Windows, and run vmware-vdiskmanager to make the disk larger. Then copy it back, boot the VM, and tell Windows to extend its partition to use the new empty space at the end of the virtual disk.
800-961-1963- Technical Guide to Resize Hard Disk Space for Windows Virtual Machine In today’s world of “Big Data,” the size of data files and folders that we store on our computer system and share them over the network does matter a lot. Jan 06, 2007 There are things you can do: 1) Copy the.vmdk over to Linux/Windows, and run vmware-vdiskmanager to make the disk larger. Then copy it back, boot the VM, and tell Windows to extend its partition to use the new empty space at the end of the virtual disk. How to Resize a VirtualBox VDI or VHD File on Mac OS X Apr 7, 2015 - 52 Comments If you use VirtualBox to run guest operating systems within a virtual machine on the Mac, like Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux, you may find yourself needing to resize the virtual disk size where the OS resides. Apple, however, does mention that in no case should a version older than OS X Mavericks 10.8.5 ever be used to resize or manage a Fusion Drive. To enlarge a volume, the volume or partition that is directly after the target volume must be deleted to make room for the enlarged target volume.
Dear Lifehacker,
I want to run Windows on my new Intel Mac, and I know I can either dual boot Windows with Boot Camp, or run Windows on my desktop with virtualization software like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Which is the best method?
Signed,
Can't Let Go of Windows
Dear Can't Let Go,
You're absolutely correct—you can dual boot Windows with Boot Camp, virtualize Windows, or have your cake and eat it too and virtualize your Boot Camp partition. If you use Boot Camp, to start Windows you have to restart your Mac and choose the Windows partition to boot. If you use virtualization software, you can start and stop Windows right from the Mac desktop. But before you decide which way is best for you, consider four factors: cost, performance, hard drive space, and file access.
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Cost: In addition to purchasing a copy of Windows to run on your Mac, if you decide to go the virtual machine route you'll have to pay for another software license. Both Fusion and Parallels cost about $80 for a single user license. (Both also offer free trials, if you want to give them a spin before you buy.) Boot Camp comes with Leopard, and it's free, so it's the cheaper (albeit less convenient) way to go.
Performance: In Boot Camp you're running Windows directly from your hard drive, instead of on top of another operating system, like you are in a virtual machine. So Boot Camp definitely provides a snappier Windows experience.
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Hard drive space: The problem with Boot Camp is that you must partition your Mac's hard drive first. This means that to install Windows, you've got to set aside a chunk of your disk to house it. Later on you can't resize this partition—if Windows needs more space or you want to give more space to the Mac side, you're out of luck. Parallels for mac and el capitan. You literally have to delete the partition, re-create it, and reinstall Windows to resize it. This limitation really stinks, especially on Macs with smaller hard drives (like notebooks). If you're running Windows in a virtual machine, however, you can change the size of the disk and even only use as much space as Windows takes up as you work.
File access: When you dual boot Windows with Boot Camp, you cannot read or write the files on your Mac's OS X partition. When you're booted into OS X, you can only read and write to your Windows partition if you've set up software that can write to NTFS drives. On the other hand, when you're running Windows in a virtual machine, you can copy files back and forth between your Mac and Windows, and even mount Mac directories as Windows drives. Also, you can run Windows applications side-by-side with your Mac apps on the Dock using VMware's Unity feature (in Parallels, it's called Coherence).
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ReadOverall, the cost of virtualization software buys you convenience and Mac integration you don't get with Boot Camp—easy Windows starting and stopping, side-by-side application access, and easy file-swapping between the two. Not to mention that you can virtualize several different operating systems on your Mac (like Vista, XP, and Ubuntu), whereas with Boot Camp, you're limited to one.
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Then again if you've got a huge hard drive and a pinched wallet and you're willing to run the two operating systems as if they were two separate computers, Boot Camp gets the job done.
Hope that helps you make your decision!
Love,
Lifehacker
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In Parallels Desktop 12.2.0 on MacOS 10.12.4, a Windows 10 VM is taking up over 170GB of mystery space. Windows only sees a 128GB drive. But Parallels claims to be using 300GB on hard disks.
It's not snapshots-- Parallels reports only 22GB for snapshots. It's not multiple disks-- Parallels reports only one hard disk. It's not unpartitioned space on the Windows side-- Windows reports no significant unpartitioned space. It's not multiple VMs because Parallels reports only one VM, which I've confirmed by seeing only one 346GB VM file in Finder.
But the space is definitely getting chewed up, because my Mac is low on disk space. WTF? Anyone know where that mystery 170GB is being used, and how to free it up? Parallels desktop 12 for mac serial key.
1 Answer
After a long chat with Parallels support followed by my own investigation, it turns out that the mystery disk space is taken up by snapshots. But Parallels apparently has a bug where it's not correctly reporting the full disk space cost of snapshots. By deleting some snapshots I was able to reclaim much of the mystery disk space.
Here's more details. Apparently Parallels stores snapshots in two places: inside your VM's .pvm file (go to /Users/YourName/Documents/Parallels, find the .pvm file, right click on it, and choose 'Show Package Contents') :
- in a
Snapshotsfolder, which is what's measured by the green Snapshots area in the General tab of Parallels VM configuration. - inside the
.hddfile that contains the actual hard disk data. If you right-click on this file and choose Show Package Contents, you'll see one.hdsfile for each snapshot that you have stored. These files are not included in the green Snapshots area in the General tab of Parallels VM configuration.
I deleted several old snapshots using the Snapshot manager, and that freed up 100GB in just a few minutes. Removing each snapshot removed one 10GB+ .hds file from inside the .hdd file.
I did see cases in the Parallels forums where old snapshots didn't show up in Snapshot Manager but were still using up disk space. Apparently there's a Terminal-based way to fix that problem. I'm pasting links here in case others run across that variant of the problem:
both linking to:
I was disappointed in Parallels for not accurately measuring the true disk cost of snapshots. Had Parallels correctly noted that snapshots were taking up 200GB vs. 128GB for real disk space, the solution (delete some snapshots, dummy!) would have been obvious. Instead I wasted hours trying to troubleshoot what could have been a simple problem to resolve.
The support engineer I worked with claimed that this incorrect measurement is not a Parallels bug. I'll leave it up to you to decide if you agree with him. ;-)
klanomath