Patent ID: 8332570

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for defragmenting physical storage of a virtual machine, comprising: obtaining prefetch information associated with prefetch data of the virtual machine, the virtual machine comprising a virtual disk; identifying, within the prefetch information, a geometry specification of the virtual disk that maps storage locations of the virtual disk to storage locations on a physical storage device that hosts the virtual disk; defragmenting, based on the prefetch information, the prefetch data on a physical storage devices by: using the geometry specification of the virtual disk to identify the prefetch data on the virtual disk; retrieving the prefetch data; moving at least a portion of the prefetch data from one location on the physical storage device to another location on the physical storage device such that access time for defragmented prefetch data is less than access time for the prefetch data before defragmenting; wherein the virtual machine packages the prefetch information as a prefetch-information file; wherein obtaining the prefetch information comprises receiving the prefetch-information-file from the virtual machine.