Any Point To Defragging a VHD File?

[nikki605]

I have Windows XP Mode VM installed on my Win7 x64 laptop. The hard drive image file - Windows XP Mode.vhd - is a little over 32GB. Is there any real advantage to defragging this file? It almost always gets fragmented (right now it is at 3 fragments) but it obviously takes a very long time to defrag a file this big.

 

I'm just wondering what you folks who have a VM installed do about defragging the vhd file. I'm really considering excluding it.

 

Thanks for any input or opinions!

Edited December 1, 2012 by nikki605

[Andavari]

As long as it would take (most likely well over an hour or longer) I personally wouldn't bother with it.

[Nergal]

probably better to defrag from within the vm (at least that's what I've always done)

[Guest Keatah]

To correctly defrag a VHD, you need to do it outside and inside. This means running a defragger on the host machine. Then a defragger inside the virtual machine.

 

The good news is once defragged, the host file tends to remain contiguous. The bad news is any sort of gains here are going to be minimal.

[Guest Keatah]

One thing my lady does with her .vhd files is she puts them into their own separate partition. Keeping this simple, let me try to explain.. imagine a standard windows machine, o/s and apps and some user data - it's all in DRIVE C partition. Kosher!

 

Then she's got a DRIVE H partition and DRIVE L partition, each holding its own .vhd file.

The DRIVE H partition she says is 49GB, and the .vhd on it is 48GB. Ditto for DRIVE L.

This way the files are not disturbed or fragmented. Of course what happens within each .vhd is another animal entirely.

 

So we have 1 HDD holding 3 partitions there.

[Nergal]

keetah, I do the same thing, I've so many extra laptop drives I put whole virtual machines each.

 

also, you've been here long enough to know, if somebody hasn't answered a thread after you post you need to edit your post and not double tap a thread. KThx

[mta]

when i first started using .vhd's and XP Mode under Win7, i thought killing the .vhd and starting a new one would be a quick way to defrag it.

you know, like the pagefile.

 

yeah... don't do that, whole world of hurt.

 

just a warning to other young .vhd pups out there....

[nikki605]

when i first started using .vhd's and XP Mode under Win7, i thought killing the .vhd and starting a new one would be a quick way to defrag it.

you know, like the pagefile.

 

yeah... don't do that, whole world of hurt.

 

just a warning to other young .vhd pups out there....

No, I never considered deleting it. I decided to exclude it in Defraggler. I only have a couple of uses for the VM, so I don't use it that often.

 

Thanks for the suggestions & opinions.