VMware Fusion Concepts
Internal
Virtual Machine Library
VMware Fusion -> Window -> Virtual Machine Library
Networking
VM Bundle
Fusion creates a virtual machine as a bundle, which is a set of files grouped together as a package. Each virtual machine bundle contains the VM's virtual disks and settings files. For more details on the location of bundle files on disk see Location of the Virtual Machine Bundle.
By default, a VM bundle is a directory with ".vmwarevm" extension.
The bundle contains the following types of files:
.vmx
The primary VM configuration file, which stores VM settings. It contains:
Location of the virtual disk files
scsi0:0.fileName = "forge-1.0-000002.vmdk"
.vmxf
<vmname>.vmxf is a supplemental configuration file.
.vmdk
A virtual disk file. It stores the contents of the guest OS hard disk drive.
<vmname>-s<###>.vmdk or <vmname>-f<###>.vmdk are slice files. As data is added to the virtual disk, .vdmk files grow in size to a maximum pre-defined-per-slice size. "s" stands for sparse if disk space is not allocated. "f" stands for flat if the disk space is allocated.
<vmname>-<######>.vmdk, <vmname>-<######>-s<###>.vmdk or <vmname>-<######>-f<###>.vmdk are the redo-logs (snapshot disks).
.log
vmware.log keeps a log of virtual machine activity, but not necessarily events that happen inside the guest OS.
.nvram
The <vmname>.nvram file stores the state of the virtual machine's BIOS.
.vmem
The <vmname>.vmem or <vmname>-Snapshot<##>.vmem file stores the RAM of a running virtual machine, or the RAM at the time the snapshot was taken.
.vmsd
<vmname>.vmsd is a centralized file for storing information and metadata about snapshots.
.vmsn
<vmname>-Snapshot<##>.vmsn is the snapshot state file, which stores the running state of a virtual machine at the time the snapshot is taken.
.vmss
<vmname>.vmss is the suspended state file, which stores the state of a suspended virtual machine.
Virtual Disk
Pre-Allocated Disk
It is not possible to reduce the size of pre-allocated disk. The size of a pre-allocated disk is always approximately equal to the size allocated to the VM's operating system.
Sparse Disk
A sparse disk's footprint on the host operating system will grow larger than the size to the space the guest operating system is currently using. This is because when the guest OS is told to delete a file, it does not actually delete the file. Instead, it stops remembering what is stored in the space that was used by the file. However, the data is not removed from the host disk. The space can be reclaimed by running a defragmenting and shrinking procedure. Unlike a sparse disk, a pre-allocated disk cannot be shrunk. The procedure to shrink a sparse disk is available here: