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1. Virtualbox snapshot how to#
2. Virtualbox snapshot install#
3. Virtualbox snapshot software#
4. Virtualbox snapshot download#
5. Virtualbox snapshot free#

Instead, you’ll want to boot into a special recovery mode where your normal root partition isn’t mounted. You can’t actually use zerofree on your / partition while you’re booted into the standard Linux environment.

Virtualbox snapshot install#

For example, you can install it on Ubuntu by running the following command at the terminal inside your virtual machine: sudo apt install zerofree

Virtualbox snapshot software#

It should be available in your Linux distribution’s software repositories. To do this, you’ll first need to install the zerofree utility inside the virtual machine. We’ll use Ubuntu as the example here, but the process will be similar on other Linux distributions.

Virtualbox snapshot free#

If you have Linux installed in the virtual machine-a Linux guest operating system instead of a Windows guest operating system, in other words-you can skip the defragmentation process and use built-in commands to zero the free space on the drive. When it’s done, shut down your virtual machine using the “Shut Down” option in its Start menu. You’ll be asked to agree to the tool’s license agreement before continuing. As the SDelete page on Microsoft’s website notes, the -z option is “good for virtual disk optimization”. If you want to shrink a secondary drive located at a different drive letter in the virtual machine, type its drive letter instead of c. This will write zeros to all the free disk space on drive C. Run the following command: sdelete.exe c: -z To quickly fill in the directory path, simply type cd into the Command Prompt window, press Space, and then drag and drop the folder icon from the file manager’s address bar.

Virtualbox snapshot download#

It should look like this: cd "C:\path\to\folder"įor example, if you extracted the sdelete.exe file to your user account’s download folder and your Windows username is Bob, you’d run the following command: cd "C:\Users\bob\Downloads" Be sure to enclose the path in quotation marks if it contains a space character. To do so, open the Start menu, search for “Command Prompt”, and launch the shortcut.Ĭhange to the directory containing the sdelete.exe file by typing cd, pressing Space, entering the path to the directory, and pressing Enter. Extract the sdelete.exe file to a folder on your computer. To do this, download the SDelete utility from Microsoft. But, when you write zeros over the deleted files, VirtualBox will see a large amount of zeroes-empty space, in other words-and be able to compact the disk. When you delete files, the deleted data is still stored on the disk so VirtualBox can’t automatically shrink the drive. Select the disk you want to compact and click “Defragment disk”.Īfter the defragmentation process is finished, you will need to write zeros to the empty space inside the virtual machine. Inside the virtual machine, search the Start menu for “Defragment” and launch the “Disk Defragmenter” or “Defragment and Optimize Drives” tool. If you have Windows installed inside the virtual machine, you should now boot the virtual machine up and defragment its disks. For example, if you have a fixed disk of 50 GB in size with only 20 GB of data on it and you convert it to a dynamic disk, you should be able to shrink it to take up only 20 GB of space. If you have a fixed size disk you want to shrink, you can first convert it to a dynamic disk and then follow the below instructions.

Virtualbox snapshot how to#

RELATED: How to Convert Between Fixed and Dynamic Disks in VirtualBox Fixed size disks will always be their maximum size. Dynamic disks may be up to a certain maximum size-50 GB, for example-but they only actually grow to that maximum size when they contain that much data. This process only works for dynamic disks, which can grow and shrink in size.

Step One: Ensure You’re Using a Dynamic Disk But, if you’ve created a dynamic disk, downloaded 10 GB of data into it, and then deleted that 10 GB of data afterwards, you should be able to shrink the disk by about 10 GB. So, if you just created a dynamic disk, this won’t shrink it. Remember that this will only shrink the disk if it’s grown in size and you’ve since removed data. RELATED: Beginner Geek: How to Create and Use Virtual Machines But you can manually shrink a dynamic disk using a hidden command. However, if you delete data from the virtual machine later, you’ll notice that the disk doesn’t automatically shrink. By default, VirtualBox creates dynamic disks that grow over time as you add data.