MCSA

VM Storage
Virtual Disk Format

Disk Format Description

VHD • Creates an image no larger than 2 TB, using the highly compatible VHD
format
VHDX • Up to 64-TB disks
• 4 K block size to improve performance.
• trim :Updated structure to help prevent data loss during unintentional
power failures and to improve storage footprint on the physical disk using
• Ability to store custom metadata about the file
Virtual Disk Type
Disk Type Description
Fixed-Size Disk ■ Fixed-sized disks offer better random write performance due to the static and predictable nature of storage
allocation.
■ Fixed-size disks are recommended for servers running applications with high levels of disk activities.
■ Fixed-sized disks are recommended for production usage, especially when storage is pooled and available for
multiple VMs
Dynamically ■ These disks are often recommended for use with data that does not require a high volume of disk activities.
Expanding Disk ■ Dynamically expanding disks are recommended for testing or development environments.
■ Dynamically expanding disks introduce a risk of storage overcommit because any VM can grow to consume
all available physical storage.
■ When deleting data, an administrator must use a compact function to shrink the virtual disk. Failing to do
this will result in physical host storage fragmentation.
Differencing ■ Differencing disks reduce storage overhead as operating system, applications, and common data is stored
Disk only once.
■ Differencing disks can be used for development purposes in that they enable you to test changes under
different VMs that link up to the same parent disk configuration.
■ Differencing disks provide additional control by allowing you to store write operations on different physical
storage platforms. This can be used to improve performance by enabling you to spread disk I/O load.
■ Because all writes occur on the differencing disk, this solution allows for quick rollback to the original system
state by deleting the existing and relinking a new differencing disk to the parent disk. Similarly, alternative
differencing disks can be relinked to the parent with just a few clicks. This enables you to flip between different
configuration states.
■ Differencing disks are helpful when deploying virtual desktop infrastructures where the operating system
and core applications are stored on a parent disk and all user-specific storage, profile information, and
configuration settings are stored on separate child disks.
■ Differencing disks are helpful if you need to share the same data set, rather than contents, of a specific VHD
file with multiple VMs. The shared data can be stored on the parent disk that is then available to all VMs
configured with a differencing disk.
Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Management

Task Description
Compact Compacts the file size of a VHD. Typically helpful with the use of dynamically
expanding disks. After data is deleted from the VHD, use the compact task to
eliminate white space and reduce the VHD file size. This option does not alter
the storage capacity defined for the VHD.
Convert Converts a VHD between fixed-sized and dynamically expanding by copying
the contents to a new VHD. The new VHD can be configured to use a
different type and format than the original hard disk.
Expand Expands the capacity of the VHD.
Merge Merges the changes stored in a differencing disk into the parent disk or a
new disk. Helpful when accepting changes after development activities.
Shrink Reduces the storage capacity of the VHD.
Inspect Inspects the VHD for any errors. Also used to determine the disk type and
format.
Reconnect After a parent-child relationship has been established, any changes to the
parent disk, such as altering the path, will invalidate the relationship. If this
happens, the child disk will need to reconnect to the parent. After inspecting
the child disk and recognizing a failure, the reconnect option will be available.
Hard Disk Sharing

new feature released with Windows Server 2012 R2

Hyper-V enables you to share a VHD between multiple VMs.
the ability to enable shared storage for guest VM failover.
helpful for providing high availability (HA) to virtual production servers such as SQL or file servers.

advantage of shared hard disks

■ VHDs must use the .VHDX format for the shared data drive.
■ The operating system must be Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2.
■ Windows Server 2012 R2 Integration Services must be installed on the guest.
■ Although technically not required, you should establish a Hyper-V failover
host cluster to ensure HA.
Storage Quality of Service
• Hyper-V now includes the ability to control and monitor disk performance, which is particularly
useful in cloud implementations.
• Storage QoS enables you to specify maximum input/output operations per second (IOPS) for a
VHD.
Importing, Exporting, Migrating, and Replicating Virtual Machines

Moving VMs between Hyper-V If you need to perform maintenance

hosts: on a particular host, Hyper-V allows you to move VMs to
different hosts.
Moving VM storage: This enables you move the VM data, checkpoints,
VHDs, and so on to one or more locations locally or on a
completely separate
shared storage medium.
Hyper-V replica: This feature allows you to replicate your VMs to standby
hosts for disaster recovery or migration situations.
Import/Export VMs: This enables you to import/export preconfigured VMs
between hosts.
Pass-Through Disks
Pass-through disks are physical disks mapped through Hyper-V and granted exclusively for use
with guest VMs.
The guest VM is granted full access to the storage while the Hyper-V server sees the storage as
an offline raw storage entity that is not assigned any drive letter.
The offline state enables the guest to own the storage.

When using pass-through disks, the following points should be considered:

■ Pass-through disks tend to provide increased performance due to guests accessing raw disks
without the added overhead of the virtualization layer. This is especially helpful for servers that
demand high levels of I/O activities such as an SQL server.
■ Pass-through disks are often more useful when you have large volumes of data. There are more
options with respect to backups available for pass-through disks.
■ Pass-through disks cannot be used with removable drives.
■ Checkpoints and other host-based Shadow Copy providers, including those included with third-
party backup providers, do not support pass-through disks. Traditional file-level backups are
required to protect data stored on passthrough disks.
■ Live Migrations without user impact are not possible with pass-through disks.
■ Pass-through disks might put an increased workload on the VM.
Checkpoints
 known as snapshots) are used to capture the state, data, and configuration of a VM.
 hey are used to quickly revert to a previous state of the VM with just a few clicks.
 New Live Migration feature : Live Migration must be enabled and configured appropriately
to take advantage of minimal to no downtime.

Checkpoints provide significant benefits

■ Raw disks such as pass-through disks are not supported by checkpoints or similar third-party
snapshot providers.
■ The more checkpoints that are created, the greater the disk I/O is for the VM. This is because
Hyper-V needs to keep track of all data changes from the point in time at which the checkpoint
was created. It essentially has to keep a journal with all events that occur so that each change
can be undone and the VM, data, and configuration can be rolled back to the previous state.
■ If checkpoints fill up all available storage, the VM can enter a saved state to prevent data
corruption. To restore the VM to a normal running state, checkpoints might need to be deleted.
This process can take considerable time depending on how many checkpoints are present.
Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 enable checkpoints to be removed while the VM is running.
Hyper-V Checkpoint Pane Tasks
Task Description
Settings Displays information contained within the checkpoint file. This includes
all hardware, management, and configuration settings for the VM.
Apply Applies the selected checkpoint to the VM. Hyper-V Manager will ask you
to select one of the following settings when applying the snapshot:
■ Take Checkpoint and Apply: Creates a new checkpoint before applying or
reverting to the selected one
■ Apply: Does not create a new checkpoint, but simply applies and
reverts to the selected one
■ Cancel: Cancels the operation and does not apply the selected
checkpoint
Export Similar to the VM export function discussed earlier, the export checkpoint
function exports the state of the selected checkpoint as a VM. Hyper-V
Manager will prompt you to specify the location for the exported VM.
Rename Renames the selected checkpoint
Delete Checkpoint Deletes the selected checkpoint. Hyper-V Manager will prompt you to
confirm whether you want to delete the checkpoint.
Delete Checkpoint Deletes the selected checkpoint and the entire subtree. Hyper-V Manager
Subtree will prompt you to confirm the selection. This action can be useful in
situations where checkpoints fill up the available storage. With just a few
clicks, many or all checkpoints can be deleted to free up space.
Storage Area Network
• SAN is simply a network dedicated to high-speed connections between servers and storage
devices.
• SAN consists of one or more drive arrays equipped with network interface adapters, which
you connect to your servers by using standard twisted pair or fiber optic network cables.

■ Server to storage Servers can access storage

devices over the SAN just as if they were connected
directly to the computer.

■ Server to server Servers can use the SAN to

communicate directly with one another at high
speeds to avoid flooding the LAN with traffic.

■ Storage to storage Storage devices can

communicate among themselves without server
intervention, for example, to perform backups from
one medium to another or to mirror drives on
different arrays
Virtual Fibre Channel Adapters
• Advanced Hyper-V strategies is the use for shared storage.
• Hyper-V Manager provides the ability to use virtual fibre channel ports within a guest VM.
• This provides the ability for guests to access the SAN directly.
• Each VM fibre channel adapter is given an unique ID or world wide name (WWN) and world
wide port name (WWPN), which is used to identify the adapter and grant access to the
presented storage on the storage.

Fibre Channel Adapter Features

■ Multipath I/O: Windows Server 2012 R2 provides the ability to use multipath I/O. MPIO is
used to provide a level of redundancy between the VMs and the storage network. Multiple
fibre channel ports on the host connect to the storage network. Guest VMs can be configured
to use multiple virtual fibre channel adapters to increase throughput and take advantage of the
multiple paths from the host to the storage network.

■ Offload Data Transfer: Enterprise-class storage systems include the ability to offload specific
data transfer tasks to separate paths to the guest. For example, the offload function can be
used in situations where checkpoints initiated by the host actually transfer data within the SAN
using the storage processors on the SAN as opposed to the resources on the guest/host or even
the production network. Hyper-V 2012 R2 is aware and fully supports the offload data transfer
technology.