What happens to disk size in Huawei FusionCompute after data is deleted inside a virtual machine?

After data is deleted inside a virtual machine on Huawei FusionCompute, the disk size remains unchanged until the next write operation occurs. This is due to the way virtual disk management works in many virtualization environments, including Huawei FusionCompute. When files or data blocks are deleted within the operating system of a virtual machine, that space is marked as free or available, but the actual size of the virtual disk file does not physically shrink.

The reason for this is rooted in how virtual disks operate: the underlying storage space allocated to the virtual machine is typically reserved for performance reasons. Until further data is written to those deleted sectors, the virtual disk retains its allocated size, which means that the physical disk space does not reduce. This also allows for more efficient use of resources and ensures that write operations are not affected by continuous resizing of the disk.

This behavior contrasts with the common expectation that deleting data reduces the disk size, as one may find in traditional file systems. However, in a virtualized environment, the disk space will only be reused after new data is written, which allows for better performance and simplifies the management of disk resources.