Forum Discussion
Profile Bloat in Azure VM and VMware VDI: A Policy-Driven Strategy for Reducing Storage Growth
This is a very practical approach to handling profile bloat in virtual desktop environments. I particularly agree with treating OneDrive as an enterprise-managed workload rather than simply disabling sync to reduce storage consumption.
One additional point worth considering is monitoring profile container growth over time. Even with Files On-Demand enabled, application caches, temporary files, and locally retained data can still contribute to profile expansion.
Combining machine-level OneDrive installation with FSLogix profile monitoring and workload-specific policies seems like a much more sustainable solution, especially in environments with multiple user groups.
I'd also be interested in how administrators are measuring the long-term impact of these policies on login times and VHDX growth. Are you using built-in monitoring or any third-party reporting tools for this?
Thanks for sharing these insights!
Thanks for the feedback, Mark! Great Point, OneDrive is a major contributor, but it's not the only one. Files On-Demand helps, but it doesn't prevent growth from caches, temporary files, or content users keep locally. I'd track profile-container size over time alongside login and logoff duration, broken down by user group and policy. Comparing that measure before and after rollout would help show whether the policies are reducing growth without hurting the user experience. Which is why I mentioned FSLogix compaction as a secondary control. We're still evaluating the best reporting approach, so I'd be interested to hear what tools you're found useful. Appreciate you reading!