tighter vmware compression

[mpaine]

Hello,

I had an idea that would both save me time and perhaps defrag things better WRT compression.  I often want to compress my vmware files to .7z (or .zip) files for backup purposes.   Here are the steps I run:

1. Run JkDefrag

2. Run  SDelete -c (from sysinternals) to make sure all the unused space are zeroed out.

3. Shrink VM (via VMWare tools)

4. Quit VMware then compress folder using 7zip.

In doing this approach, I would like to request if JkDefrag could implement the zero'ing out Phrase into a new command parameter?  Also, under this compression mode, taking the "solid compression" idea from 7zip, JkDefrag could group files based on file extension.  This would make for better compression too.

Does any of that sound doable?


Thanks for the great program!
Michael

[jeroen]

Thank you very much for sharing your idea, I appreciate it! Zeroing out the unused sectors on the virtual VM disk is a nice idea, it should indeed result in better compression. But I don't think I will add it to JkDefrag, sorry. I feel it would be useful only to an extremely small set of power users with a very specific need. Sorting by file extension is also an interesting idea and should also result in better compression. But it will reduce the speed of the virtual disk. I am sure most VMware users will prefer more speed, rather than a smaller archive.

[schitzn]

For some reason, I see a lot of VMWare users on these forums,

And Im one as well btw.

[JKShamus]

This is because I don't trust Microsoft's native defragmenter and can't be bothered to install a full blown package (perfect disk, etc.) on a subsystem not designed for daily usage (a virtual machine). 

I still want to be able to tidy up my VMs quickly or via command line!