Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Given that the main disk image is 1.5GB but the snapshots are only 
>>> 300MB each, I figured it was doing some sort of compression.
>>
>> No, it's just keeping a list of sectors you've ever written anything to.
> 
> I assumed that's what the main image file was doing also.

It depends how you configure things.

> Linux has a way to zero unused disk blocks?

dd if=/dev/zero of=/xyzzy bs=1M count=... ; rm /xyzzy

> (I'm not surprised that this doesn't make VMware release those blocks, 
> however... Should make the file more compressible though.)

It does.

> I dislike having to "register" to get my hands on supposedly "free" 
> software.

There's an easy cure for that. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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