Disk Fragmentation in a VMware Environment

The purpose of a virtual machine is to allow the user to allocate physical systems resources to multiple tasks. In many computer operations, the CPU and memory resources are underutilized. Virtual machines allow an organization to get better resource utilization without the added expense of new hardware. They also provide a portable environment that can keep a system going on an alternative platform when there is a hardware failure. In the case of VMware, a virtual machine is created on a host disk. Many administrators believe it is a good practice to keep all their virtual machines in one directory. The virtual machine consists of two main files: the VMX file and the VMDK file.