Converting a Lazy Zeroed disk to Eagerly

Technical Article
March 19, 20131 min read

How to convert a VMware VMDK from lazy zeroed to eagerly zeroed thick provisioning, and when the performance difference is worth the conversion time.

Categories
VirtualisationVmware
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Operating SystemVirtual MachineVmdkVmfstoolsVmware Esx
Converting a Lazy Zeroed disk to Eagerly

Logon to the ESXI Server where the VM is stored using a product like putty.

Ensure the VM is turned off.

The following command lists the datastores:

"ls" is used to List subregions - used to list out files in  a directory.

  1. ls /vmfs/volumes

/images/blog/vmware_eagerdisk1.png

/images/blog/vmware_eagerdisk2.png

  1. ls /vmfs/volumes/ESX01\_Internal1/

/images/blog/vmware_eagerdisk3.png

  1. ls /vmfs/volumes/ESX01\_Internal1/RDS2012/

/images/blog/vmware_eagerdisk4.png

  1. "vmkfstools -k /vmfs/volumes/ESX01\_Internal1/RDS2012/RDS2012.vmdk"

As shown above use vmkfstools -k to convert a Lazy Zeroed disk to a Eagerly Zeroed disk.

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