Inflate VMDK file - VMWare

Recently I had a request come through from a client to change a Virtual Machine's disk from Thin to Thick provisioned.

To achieve this is relatively easy and can be done by following these steps:

1. Log into vSphere and get the location of where the Virtual Machine disk is located

2. Power off the Virtual Machine
3. Browse the Datastore and find the .vmdk file

4. Right-click on the .vmdk file and click Inflate

5. This will then inflate the drive up to the provisioned size you had originally selected when you created the drive.

6. Power on Virtual Machine

There shouldn't be a need to do anything further once the Virtual Machine has been powered on.  It will boot up the same as it did before, but the difference is that the .vmdk file is now Thick Provisioned.

Note that you cannot have any Snapshots associated with this virtual machine before going through this process.