Optimize the disk(s) and partition(s) on your VM by using VMware Converter 5

By using VMware Converter 5 the following disk optimizations can be easily done on your existing VM:

  • Convert one or more partition(s) on single disk to partitions on a separate disks. When you want to increase disk space on the C: partition this is a problem because of the D partition is on the same disk.

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  • Resize one or more partition(s)
  • Align on or more disks. (not needed anymore for Microsoft Windows 2008, Windows Vista  or greater). This example shows a partition that is not aligned

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  • Adjust the cluster size

V2V procedure:

  • Power down the VM
  • In VMware Converter select “Convert Machine”
  • Follow the instructions on the screen till you got the options screen
  • Edit the “Data to copy

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  • Change the “Data copy type” from “Copy all disks and maintain layout” in

Select volumes to copy”.

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  • Select “Advanced” and choose the “Destination” layout
  • Change the disk size (in the example we change the C-partition to 30GB)
  • Use “Add Disk”, the VirtualDisk2 is created.
  • Move the partition down (in the example the E: partition)
  • Be sure that the “Create optimized partition layout” option is selected for all the disks.  VMware Converter optimize the disk partitions alignment”
  • The cluster size in this example at the default value

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  • After the V2V the VM has 2 disks, the partition size is increased and both disk are aligned.

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Check the disk alignment by using msinfo32.exe

VMware Converter 5.0 is available as public beta and can be found here.