Trying to compact dynamic VHDX - MFT in the way?

[hardware_failure]

Im trying to compact a very large dynamically expanding VHDX file. On the first try It did compact a little bit, but not anywhere near to the size of the actual data (3.4 TB used of about 7TB, now the file is about 5.5TB)

After some reading I learned that the VHDX will only compact down to the last area that data is stored, just like trying to shrink a partition. Makes sense. So I did a complete defrag (took over a week) but Im still having the same problem because...

There is a large MFT "area" about 3/4 into the VHDX file. Defraging software wont move it. I read that some sort of boot into defrag might do it, but the problem is, this is a production server and it cant be down for more than the weekend. Just analyzing the volume takes for freaking ever. I do of course have solid backups of the system, but that in it self is the whole reason for this. I would much rather back up 3.4TB worth of data vs 5.5ish.

Long story shrot - is there a quick, easy and SAFE way to move an MFT on a VHDX file?

Thanks.

 

[MysticRyuujin]

Couldn't you mount the VHDX file inside of another server, take it offline and defrag it there? Not sure. I would think that moving the MFT to the beginning of the disk is a question that has been answered outside of VHDX specifically and you might find your answer there. The most common software I see referenced in Google is Perfect Disk, and it has a free trial it seems

 

[JBark]

The most common software I see referenced in Google is Perfect Disk, and it has a free trial it seems

Yeah, this will do it, I've used it when moving from a large HDD to a smaller SSD and need to shrink the partition by more than half the original size.

That said, I think it does a full boot time defrag when it moves the MFT, so it could be down for hours and hours while it defrags the entire thing before booting into Windows. It's been a while, so I can't remember for sure. I'm pretty sure it at least does a full analyze first though when doing the boot time defrag.

 

[hardware_failure]

Well, I guess I could give perfect disk a try Friday night and see how far it gets by mid sunday, and hopefully it will have done enough by sunday.

Thanks guys.