You can add storage space to a virtual machine by expanding its virtual hard disk.

When you expand a virtual hard disk, the added space is not immediately available to the virtual machine. To make the added space available, you must use a disk management tool to increase the size of the existing partition on the virtual hard disk to match the expanded size.

The disk management tool that you use depends on the virtual machine guest operating system. Many operating systems, including Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 and some versions of Linux, provide built-in disk management tools that can resize partitions. Third-party disk management tools are also available, such as EASEUS Partition Master, Acronis Disk Director, and the open-source tool GParted.

When you expand the size of a virtual hard disk, the sizes of partitions and file systems are not affected.

As an alternative to expanding a virtual hard disk, you can add a new virtual hard disk to the virtual machine. See Add a New Virtual Hard Disk to a Virtual Machine.

Prerequisites

  • Power off the virtual machine.
  • Verify that the virtual disk is not mapped or mounted. You cannot expand a virtual disk while it is mapped or mounted.
  • Verify that the virtual machine has no snapshots.
    Note: Workstation Player does not support taking snapshots or deleting them.
  • Verify that the virtual machine is not a linked clone or the parent of a linked clone.

    You can determine whether a virtual machine is a linked clone by the virtual machine name string on the summary page. If the string includes "Clone of: virtual machine name", the virtual machine is a linked clone. If the string includes "Snapshot: Snapshot for virtual machine name", the virtual machine is a parent of a linked clone.

Procedure

  1. Select the virtual machine and select Player > Manage > Virtual Machine Settings.
  2. On the Hardware tab, select the virtual hard disk to expand.
  3. Select Utilities > Expand.
  4. Set the new maximum size for the virtual disk.
    You can set a size between 0.001 GB and 8192 GB for a virtual disk.
  5. Select Expand.
  6. Click OK after the disk expansion process is complete.

What to do next

Use a disk management tool to increase the disk partition size to match the expanded virtual disk size.