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I converted a vmdk image file to qcow2 with qemu-img (on a ubuntu 14.04 server)

sudo qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 Odoo-disk1.vmdk odoo-disk1.qcow2

now, the resulting qcow2 image is more then twice as big as the original.

$ ls -lh
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3.3G Nov 20 14:46 Odoo-disk1.vmdk
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7.4G Nov 21 14:35 odoo-disk1.qcow2

Not really sure what to think of this but I would be much more relaxed whether the files where similar in size. Is there any way to achieve that? I am not very experience with this matter, so any explanation why that just 'is like that' would also be helpful

I set up the VM using this qcow 2 image and after started it virsh list --all shows the machine as 'running'.

2 Answers 2

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It is possible that your vmdk was compressed or that you did not create a qcow2 file at all. If you convert normally with qemu-img convert some.vmdk some.qcow2, you would get a raw file.

To convert from a vmdk file to a compressed qcow2 file, try:

qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -c some.vmdk some.qcow2
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    I made a qcow2 (-O qcow2). but the idea with the compression was a good one. comparing both files with qemu-img -info shoes "compressed: true" for the vmdl file.
    – vrms
    Nov 21, 2015 at 10:52
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My guess is the vmdk is sparse or compressed. Qcow2 supports sparse images too.

You could try tweaking the -s (sparse size) argument to see if it's the sparseness.

You could also try mounting and defragging the new qcow2 image and re-converting to try and put all the empty space back to back and filling it with zeros as recommended here, so the sparseness parameter isn't an issue, if it's a filesystem that supports that sort of thing.

Just a couple of options

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  • see comment above about compression .... I don't actually mind that the file I get is that big (7.3 GB). I was more worried that something went wrong. Not sure whether you suggestions about the sparsing is a little 'over the top' for my purpose here. Thanks anyway. The hint with compression kind of answered it for me
    – vrms
    Nov 21, 2015 at 10:56

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