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Windows 2012 Hyper-V VHDX Disk format : Why should you convert your VHD to VHDX and how (Step by Step)
Although this topic is not new I had some readers asking me about it. So here we go…
Windows 2012 Hyper-V has a new disk format : VHDX.
VHDX principal features
- Storage capacity up to 64 terabytes (TBs). With the VHDX format we can to create larger virtual hard disks ( up to 64TB). The VHD format has a 2 TB limit to VHD’s.
- Corruption protection during power failures
- Optimal structure alignment for large-sector disks (4K sector aligned virtual hard disk), which increases the performance. Why Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V VHDX 4K Alignment Is So Important
- Trim/Unmap – Space efficiency on VHDX files as well as the host disk
- Thin provisioning
- Ability to store custom metadata about the file that the user might want to record, such as operating system version or patches applied
You can convert a VHD into VHDX and vice versa. As long the size limit for the VHD is respected:
- Shutdown the Virtual Machine
- Double check if there is NO Snapshots
- Double check if there is NO replication enabled
- On the Hyper-V Manager, on the left pane select Edit Disk…
- Click on Next
- On the Edit Virtual Disk Wizard, type the name and location of your existing VHD file or click on Browse to locate
- Click on Next
- On the Choose Action page select Convert and then click Next
- On the Choose Disk Format page select VHDX and click Next
- On the Choose Disk Type page select Disk type : Fixed or Dynamic and then click Next
- On the Configure Disk page type the destination path and then click Next
- On the Summary page, click Finish to start the process. The process time depends on the VHD size.
Counting down for August 15th…Windows 2012 #Hyperv. Reasons to upgrade…
It is next week : August 15th that Windows 2012 will be available for download for MSDN subscribers. Are you ready to deploy it?
Enhancements in Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 , on network (Teaming, Hyper-V Extensible Switch), multi-tenancy security, higher performance and flexibility.
The performance improvements in Windows Server 2012 over the Server 2008 R2, are huge :
- Increases in the number of logical processors on server hardware, to 160 from 64;
- Increases in the amount of physical memory, to 2TB from 1TB;
- Increases in the number of virtual processors per host server, to 1,024 from 512;
- Increases in the number of virtual processors per virtual machine, to 32 from four;
- Increases in the amount of memory per virtual machine, to 1TB from 64GB;
- Increases in the number of active virtual machines, to 1,024 from 384;
- Increases in the maximum number of virtual nodes in a single server cluster, to 64 from 16;
- Increases in and in the total number of virtual machines, to 4,000 from 1,000
- New virtual disk version : VHDX ( with a built-in feature for preventing data corruption)
- Virtual fiber channel ( making possible to offer the HBA in the host as a virtual HBA to the Virtual Machines)
- SMB file shares to store Virtual Machines
- Hyper-V Replica ( makes possible to create a replica of VMs on other Hyper-V hosts, even in – remote locations ) – ESSENTIAL in DR solutions.
Plus, true live storage migration, shared-nothing live migration, improvements in Dynamic memory… and counting.
Windows Server 2012 will also be available in the desktop version : Windows 8. You can install the Hyper-V on Windows 8 by navigating to the Control Panel and selecting Turn Windows features on or off and select the Hyper-V Platform option.
Note: One of the requirements of running Hyper-V on the Windows 8 edition is that the processor needs to support SLAT (Second Level Address Translation), otherwise Hyper-V will not available.
Resuming, Windows Server 2012 has a lot of improvements and quite a lot of new functionality as well! So, enjoy the upgrade!
Altaro
Recommended Books
System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Cookbook
