Please help, why is my Parallels file so big??

[Dorian Renzi]

I just noticed that my parallels HD files is about 40GB in size and I don't even have many applications on it. It was never like this when I first installed it but it seemed to grow over time.

I only have 4GB of snapshots and that is in a different folder. The file I am refering to is this one:

WindowsXP-O.hdd

I haven't used Parallels compressor yet and I don't know if that would help. Even if it would reduce the size it shouldn't have been this big to begin with.

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[TIGER@]

Hello Dorian,

Snapshots files in a separate folder you are referring to are just service files for snapshots. Snapshots themselves are inside WindowsXP-O.hdd file and they should be bigger that 4 GB and they all have different size and represented as .hds files. While you are using your virtual machine .hds file is growing in size as you add files, make changes in Windows. As soon as you create snapshot, the original file stops growing and new .hds file is created to store new changes and newly created/added files in Windows. When you create another snapshot, again, new .hds file is created and so on with each new snapshot. So, as a result, the more snapshots you have, more .hds files you have in WindowsXP-O.hdd image file. As a consequence, your WindowsXP-O.hdd file has several GBs in size.

To decrease the size of your virtual machine's hard disk image file ( WindowsXP-O.hdd ) you need to delete some snapshots that you do not need anymore. You can do it via Snapshot Manager.

P.S. To be able to compress virtual hard disk, you need to remove all snapshots as compression is not possible while virtual hard disk has snapshots.

 

[carlosrodzbotet]

I think I have the same issue.

I have a few of these files :

Windows 7-0.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds


I'm running out of disk space too and I have one of these files for every month. Can I delete any of them and how do I determined which one to delete?

 

[carlosrodzbotet]

OK but what does my Mac OS system have to do with all these files that are on the Windows 7 VM in Parallels? How do they interact that they messed up my Mac OS?

I use CCC to copy the entire bootable hard drive to my portable drive but all these files that are being created every month are on the main Mac drive on the Parallels VM I have with Windows 7.

 

[carlosrodzbotet]

This is what I'm talking about. How do I get rid of this if it's even possible?

 

[Tony Carreon]

those files are not in your windows VM, those ARE the windows VM that live on the mac. you're looking at files that live on your mac through windows explorer (via shared folders).

 

[carlosrodzbotet]

Thanks. I found out the hard way when I deleted one to see what happened. It was an easy fix to correct though thanks to CCC and my cloned backup.

I finally found out that what was making my VM so enormous was my snapshots. Now that I understand Snapshots my VM is about 65% smaller than it was a couple of days ago.

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[carlosrodzbotet]

Remember that as a consequence, your WindowsXP-O.hdd file has several GBs in size.

As a consequence to what?

 

[AQEELA2]

Its the year 2023, and I have the same issue; the VM size is almost 1TB, and inside Windows, it took only 151 GB. How come file is one tb in size ??? and I do not have any snapshots