Hi all,
I am quite new to virtualization and I was interested into thin provisioning practice but there is something I can't get !
Let say I have a 100Gb thin disk with 25Gb of data on it. If I explore the datastore from the vSphere Client, it tell me that the real file size of the VMDK file is 25Gb and that the allocated space is 100Gb, so far so good.. But when I log into ESXi with SSH console and explore the datastore, I see that the VMDK file as in fact already 100Gb of size. More over, when I use software like VM Standalone Converter or VM Explorer to move / backup VM, these softwares have to handle 100Gb file (much slower than the 25Gb really needed).
So, maybe there is something I don't get, but is the file size only "thin" for vSphere ? I didn't needed the ability to over-allocate datastore space, what I wanted with thin provisioning was lighter file to handle when manipulating and saving VM. Am I wrong on the concept ?
Thank a lot to help me 