How to Create a 300Gb Guest System

Discussion in 'macOS Virtual Machine' started by KevinB7, May 16, 2017.

  1. KevinB7

    KevinB7 Member

    Messages:
    43
    OK, so I have stuffed around for a week trying to get a decent sized disk on a macOS Sierra VM. It is UTTERLY frustrating.

    When you create a macOS VM parallels sizes the Drive at 65GB and of partition type GUID.
    1. YOU CANNOT RESIZE disk at startup
    2. You CANNOT RESIZE IT Later (KB says ...Parallels CANNOT resize GUID partition... but, hey I sure can create one of the wrong size - the perfect storm)
    In FUSION, one simple way AT CREATE is to size the disk, you have that opportunity.
    So parallels' GURUs HOW HOW HOW DO YOU GET A 300GB GUEST macOS system. Apologies for shouting, I am so frustrated. And please, don't tell me what should work, what you think would work, what might work (I don't wish to sound rude, but I've tried about everything), just tell me PLEASE what actually DID work.
    For the Record, MBP 15" Retina and Parallels 12.xx
    Thanks in anticipation......
     
  2. PaulChristopher@Parallels

    PaulChristopher@Parallels Product Expert Staff Member

    Messages:
    3,158
    Hi @KevinB7, this option isn't available as a current feature set (since Parallels Desktop does not support resizing of HFS+ systems)
    You can add a second virtual hard drive file to your existing Mac Os X virtual machine. This will add an additional space to your guest Mac OS X.
    In order to add a second drive please follow steps from this knowledge base article:
    You can also use some available 3-rd party tools to increase existing guest Mac Os X partition.
     
  3. KevinB7

    KevinB7 Member

    Messages:
    43
    Hi Paul,

    Thank you for the response.

    A second partition would not work based on the way I currently use the macOS host (which I want to virtualise) and I do not want the hassle (which it would be in my case) of a second partition. Having said that, I find it simply INCREDIBLE that you cannot rezise the partition (at create time at least) of a GUID/HFS+ partition, that almost beggars belief. I also find it incredible that no one else is complaining about this lack of what I would consider 'basic' functionality.

    Anyway, as they say, it is what it is.

    Kevin
     
  4. KevinB7

    KevinB7 Member

    Messages:
    43
    Paul,

    I followed your advice and managed to create a 256Gb HFS+ partition converting to coreStorage and back per your link. This is a cumbersome, but straight forward process.

    My question is: If you know about the issue trying to resize a GUID/HFS+ partition and it is a process that you know of:
    1. Convert from HFS+ to coreStorage
    2. Use DiskUtil to resize partition
    3. Convert coreStorage to HFS+
    Why have you not put in a work around by way of a simple script that could be invoked when creating the OSX VM????????????
    Surely developing such a script would take your developers about 15 minutes (OK, give them another 15 minutes to test it) and you could edit the install to simply say, IFF you want to resize the OSX partition do it now, enter Size etc - run script - feed in parameter (size) - job done. Instead, you let users faff around for days on end until they finally come across your KB article that says you cannot change the size of an HFS+ partition, or until they post to the forums to be told they've been wasting their time, but here's a solution (we didn't bother to put into our Parallels application) - incredible.........

    OR OR OR, if Parallels cannot evn put in this simple work around then:

    Why do they NOT give the user the option to SELECT the HFS+ partition size when it is BEING CREATED - NO RESIZING NECESSARY, how hard would that be????

    Now I have the Sierra OS freezes issue, see other thread for that one.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2017
  5. KevinB7

    KevinB7 Member

    Messages:
    43
    And it's good to see there are people more knowledgeable than Parallels support on the net. The stuff above works, it's convoluted and frankly quite stupid having to do that just to get a volume bigger than 67Gb. OK, so want a simple way (not my idea, but I proved it works):
    1. Create your macOS VM
    2. Make sure VM is shutdown
    3. In Parallels config set the disk size to what you want (say 256Gb)
    4. Start the VM and login
    5. Start a terminal
    6. At the prompt, enter:
    sudo diskutil resizeVolume / R
    Done, the volume will be resized to the max available space (around 273Gb, don't ask why if you settle size to 256Gb). I suspect you can replace the 'R' parameter with another value, you can look it up.

    Works in Parallels with a GUID partition type HFS+.
     
  6. LaurentG1

    LaurentG1 Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    I was in the same case, and also very disappointed by the fact we cannot create a new MacOS VM with a customized HD size.
    Your last update in this forum was very useful for me. Thanks Kevin for that.
    I had to use some new commands since my VM is under MacOS High Sierra, the disk is formatted with APFS.
    Here they are. But it have to be adapted if someone would like to use them. Do not copy/paste without checking the parameters !
    My goal was to resize the main HD to 2 Tb.
    • With the VM stopped, go into parallels configuration for this VM.
    • Resize the disk to 2 Tb.
    • Restart the VM
    • Go into a Terminal window of your VM, and use the following commands :
    • sudo diskutil list
    • sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 limits (use the name of the physical container from the last command)
    • sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 2t (use the maximum size displayed previously - "t" stands for Tb or "g" for Gb)
    That's it !
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018

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