SYNCHRONIZING ALLOCATED BLOCKS OF VIRTUAL DISK FILES ACROSS PRIMARY AND SECONDARY VOLUMES BY EXCLUDING UNUSED BLOCKS

A method for virtual disk usage transparency may include 1) identifying a secondary volume at a secondary site configured for synchronization with a primary volume at a primary site, 2) identifying a set of blocks present within the primary volume but not present within the secondary volume, 3) identifying a virtual disk file within the primary volume, the virtual disk file including at least one block within the set of blocks, 4) determining that the block represents an unused block within a guest file system configured to use the virtual disk file, 5) selecting a subset of the set of blocks to transmit from the primary site to the secondary site, where selecting the subset includes excluding the block from the subset, and 6) transmitting the subset of the set of blocks from the primary site to the secondary site. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.