[HyperV] Can HyperV convert a VDI from Virtualbox to a VHD?

[RabbieBurns]

Im running gentoo as the host, and virtualbox as the hypervisor, and 2008, 2008R2, Win7 as virtual machines.

Im thinking of running 2008R2 Datacenter edition as the host OS, and then just virtualising the 2008, 2008R2, Gentoo, and Win7. Host only has 8GB of RAM, and the performance of 2008R2 and Win7 on virtualbox/gentoo isnt great. Im hoping it would improve on a baremetal hypervisor?

Question is, can I convert my existing virtualbox hard drives and convert them to use with HyperV?

[danrhodes]

Im running gentoo as the host, and virtualbox as the hypervisor, and 2008, 2008R2, Win7 as virtual machines.

Im thinking of running 2008R2 Datacenter edition as the host OS, and then just virtualising the 2008, 2008R2, Gentoo, and Win7. Host only has 8GB of RAM, and the performance of 2008R2 and Win7 on virtualbox/gentoo isnt great. Im hoping it would improve on a baremetal hypervisor?

Question is, can I convert my existing virtualbox hard drives and convert them to use with HyperV?

This should do the trick? "VBoxManage clonehd source.vdi target.vhd --format vhd"

[RabbieBurns]

Looks perfect!

Any idea if Ill get better performance with what Im planning? Its not a beefy box really, just my testing setup runnign exchange 2010, Win7, Office 2010 etc etc

[danrhodes]

Depending on the options you go for with the Eternus your throughput will vary if you invest and go for the Fibre Attached and SSD disk option you will be running very quickly. Likewise if you go with iSCSI and normal 7200k disks it will still be very quick.

We use ours for running VHD disks and file storage and have neer noticed any speed issues even when running full blask ahead.

If you were wanting it to last I'd opt for the SSD and Fibre Attached Options, good thing is they are easily scailable too, if you find you need more storage just purchase a new one and plonk it on the top and plug him in!

D

[RabbieBurns]

Im not familiar with the phrase "Eternus" ?

Its only got a 1TB SATA 7200 disk, just now.. Its very much just a muck about testing box ;p

[SYNACK]

You will get way better performance from a bare metal hypervisor like hyper-v or ESXi as long as you have visualization extensions in the CPU (VT AMD-V) it is a huge difference performance wise or at least it was for me on one of my test boxes.

[oxide54]

ESXi will perform much better than hyper-v. The hyper-v parent partition will use 2gb of memory for itself and you can't overcommit memory with hyper-v but you can with esxi

my .02c

[danrhodes]

Correct, ESX will perform better as it is bare metal, I use both an don't really have a preference, they both do the job they were made for.

D

[RabbieBurns]

HyperV is baremetal as well is it not?

What about if I just run 2008R2 Datacenter Core, what resources would that use?

I have a license for MS i dont have an ESX license. Does ESX(i) not have strict hardware requirements too?

[danrhodes]

HyperV is baremetal as well is it not?

What about if I just run 2008R2 Datacenter Core, what resources would that use?

I have a license for MS i dont have an ESX license. Does ESX(i) not have strict hardware requirements too?

Yep both are BareMetal.

"Both the free stand-alone version and the version that is part of the commercial Windows Server 2008 product use a virtualized Windows Server 2008 parent partition to manage the Type 1 Hyper-V hypervisor. In both cases the Hyper-V hypervisor loads prior to the management operating system, and any virtual environments created run directly on the hypervisor, not via the management operating system."

D

[jamesfed]

Have you looked at Hyper V server? Its pretty much just for running VMs and runs just like Server Core (but even more stable)
http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-ser...s/default.aspx

[danrhodes]

Have you looked at Hyper V server? Its pretty much just for running VMs and runs just like Server Core (but even more stable)
http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-ser...s/default.aspx

Yep I've looked at this product before, only trouble is you need to be fluent in power-shell to get anything done as it doesn't come with a GUI.

[jamesfed]

Yep I've looked at this product before, only trouble is you need to be fluent in power-shell to get anything done as it doesn't come with a GUI.

I think they updated it (being R2) to allow more on the remote management side of things it might be worth a quick look at Microsoft Hyper-V Server: Technical Resources just to see if things have changed from when you did your research.

Either way Im a Citrix XenServer man

[danrhodes]

I think they updated it (being R2) to allow more on the remote management side of things it might be worth a quick look at Microsoft Hyper-V Server: Technical Resources just to see if things have changed from when you did your research.

Either way Im a Citrix XenServer man

Still doesn't come with a GUI -

No getting away from the fact that its still a viable program to consider though!

D

[oxide54]

It doesn't have a local gui.

But i though you could install the mmc snapins on a vista+ box and manage the box with that.