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I have a brand new VMWare ESXi 6.5 standalone host. I created a VM and installed Ubuntu 16.04.1 server onto it. I noticed that the VMDK file is only 549 bytes after installation. The VM runs just fine. Can somebody explain why the VMDK file is so small and where the installed OS went?

Here are the details:

  • Host: ESXi 6.5
  • Datastore: Synology NFS share
  • VM: 1GB RAM, 16GB thin provisioned drive, name: test2
  • OS: Ubuntu 16.04.1 server, encrypted 6GB LVM, VMWare Tools installed

Files in NFS folder when VM is shutdown:

  • test2.nvram - 9 KB
  • test2.vmsd - 0 KB
  • test2.vmx - 4 KB
  • test2.vmxf - 4 KB
  • test2_0.vmdk - 1 KB
  • vmware.log - 293 KB
jackbean818
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  • How are you checking the file sizes? – ewwhite Jan 29 '17 at 03:04
  • This phenomenon happened to me twice, so I created a test VM and did a clean Ubuntu install again, to make sure I am not seeing things, and those are weird the numbers I am getting. – jackbean818 Jan 29 '17 at 03:04
  • I check the file sizes two ways: 1. vSphere reported used space of 14KB 2. I opened up the folder in Synology and check each file size – jackbean818 Jan 29 '17 at 03:05
  • Do you think there are hidden files I am not seeing? – jackbean818 Jan 29 '17 at 03:09
  • I just figured it out, apparently the real vmdk file (test2_0-flat.vmdk) was hidden from the way I was checking. I don't know why vSphere would also report only 14KB used. Really thanks to @ewwhite for shedding the light. – jackbean818 Jan 29 '17 at 03:17

1 Answers1

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If you're browsing from the Synology, that's not the "source of truth".

Try refreshing the storage utilization from the vSphere client.

ewwhite
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