The Systems Engineer

Provision your VM as normal however use a 1GB disk.
Log into your VMWare server command line via ssh or other CLI and go to the directory that contains the vmdk’s for the VM.

Assuming the VM name is SERVER01 issue the following commands. If the name were different simply replace SERVER01 with your server name.
vmkfstools -i SERVER01.vmdk 1.vmdk -d thin
rm -f SERVER01*.vmdk
vmkfstools -E 1.vmdk SERVER01.vmdk

This will clone the vmdk to a new vmdk but as type thin. Then it will remove the old vmdk’s. Then it will export the thin vmdk to be in place of your old one so you do not have to reconfigure the vmx.

Now log into virtual center and edit the settings for your virtual machine. Set the disk size to the maximum you wish it to be. The vmdk will appear to grow in command line. However if you look at the vmdk in the data store it remains 1G. The space is not actually used on the vmfs volume until needed by the VM.

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