VM backup still huge after deleting flle system

[CatSpirent]

I am trying to shrink the disk on my Linux VM.
Best I can tell from a previous forum item vmware-vsphere-f24/using-veeam-b-r-to-s ... 46227.html

I believe I need to restore a backup as a thin provision to make sure the data is compact before I can then use the VMWare P2V to convert it with a smaller disk.

This is a test VM which I was figuring out how to set up something and I am not ready to just dump it, just in case I need it to remember what I did, but if it is lost, I did make notes so probably won't be tragic if something goes horribly wrong. But doing this does get me more experience with VEEAM.

Since I didn't need one huge file system which was 800GB, I deleted it. The remaining data per df command is just under 100GB.
I shut the VM down to make sure no activity just in case, which in theory should also clean up any hidden files.

What I don't understand is why the backup I create still creates a file that is over 500GB.
What is VMWare backing up?

[CatSpirent]

Never mind, after more searching I found this link: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/ ... nt-of-data
It seems I will have to use the VMWare converter twice and not use VEEAM.
Once to thin provision converting the VM, and then a second time to shrink the disk treating the VM as though it is a server.
Trying it now.