VMWare Server includes the ability to only allocate disk space on the host system as needed. For example, if the virtualised system has a 8GB disk but only uses 4GB, then the disk image only takes up 4GB. While the disk image will expand as required, it won’t automatically reduce. The VMWare Tools application allows you to shrink it back on demand, but it’s a GUI app, which is fine if you’re running Windows, or Unix/Linux with X, but sod all use if you like to run your Linux VMs as lean as possible, without X.

VMWare Command Line Tools from VM Back More >