Free up disk space on Hyper V host?

[TheHyperTechie]

Wondering if someone can advise, as I have never come across/dealt with this before.

 

We have a Server 2012 host, hosting two Server 2016 virtual machines.

 

The VMs have been veeeeeery slow lately, I noticed the physical drive on the host (D drive) only has about 20gb of storage left, it's where the VHD files are stored etc.... eek. I know that deleting anything on the VMs won't free up any space on the host so my thought was to shrink each virtual drive on our VMs.

 

Can anyone else advise?

 

Thanks!

Edited December 1, 2023 by HyperTech

[DalekSec]

Are the VHDs Fixed or Variable?

 

If they are all fixed it shouldn't have 20gb left without you being aware first.

 

If it's only VHDs on D:\ there will be one that is variable if you've not created any more!

(also to be that guy, you need to get 2012 upgraded! It's EOL)

[TheHyperTechie]

Thanks for your reply.

 

Yes currently on my list of things to do, VMs have been upgraded - just about finding the time/downtime to do it!

[TheHyperTechie]

Are the VHDs Fixed or Variable?

 

If they are all fixed it shouldn't have 20gb left without you being aware first.

 

If it's only VHDs on D:\ there will be one that is variable if you've not created any more!

(also to be that guy, you need to get 2012 upgraded! It's EOL)

 

Managed to find some old checkpoints which amounted to a fair bit. Deleted them... now for the long wait of a merge in progress

Edited December 1, 2023 by HyperTech

[PotNoodleTech]

Deleting old checkpoints can be troublesome the longer they've been there - hope it all works eventually for you!

[KK20]

One tip, if you need to migrate VM to new storage but are a bit paranoid, you can use VEEAM to backup, (shut down original VM) and live restore to new storage. That way you still have your original storage/VM untouched (cold shutdown) whilst VEEAM runs and restores to your new hardware. VEEAM community is free for 10 workloads.