Chunked/split VMDK file with pieces less/smaller than 2GB each

I had a similar problem with the same solution as this one. I use sync tools (rsync, unison) for file synchronization between my work computers, and large HDD image files are a problem for those. I coult not find any ready solution for this online, but reading the previous posts allowed me te create one of my own.

As mentioned by mpack VMDK extents may be smaller than 2GB, but there are no tools for creating them in such a way. I got it working by doing the following:

1 - Creating a flat/fixed hard disck as big as a single fragment (128MB, for example).

VBoxManage createhd --filename disk.vmdk --format VMDK --variant FIXED --size 128MB

2 - Replicating the slice as many times as needed (8 times for 1GB)

for i in $(seq -w 0001 8); do
   cp disk-flat.vmdk disk-s$i.vmdk
done
rm disk-flat.vmdk

3 - Edit disk.vmdk to use the slices instead of the flat image:
3a - change createtype to "twoGbMaxExtentSparse"
3b - repeat RW line for each slice file.
3c - remove all ddb.geometry lines.

In order to make the process easier i wrote a script (linux, bash, requires gawk).
pastebin dot com/8G4BSgt7

To create a 1GB disk named disk.vmdk made of 128MB fragments use:
./create_split_vmdk.sh --filename disk --fragment 128 --size 1024