Exprt VM versus Copy and Pasting the VHD?

[Tsonga]

As you will see from my previous thread we have a new Hyper-V cluster set up.

 

We are looking into the different ways of moving a VM from one cluster to another. Both Exporting the VM and simply copying and pasting the relevant folder to the NAS works, but exporting takes forever.

 

My question is, does anyone know the benefits of Exporting versus copying and pasting? We have a lot of VMs to move and its a time consuming process to Export.

[kmount]

Slightly off topic, but I'd have a look at Veeam's free offering it might help.

 

It doesn't (yet) officially support 2012 but may be worth a look.

 

Free virtual machine backup - Veeam Backup

[Davit2005]

Slightly off topic, but I'd have a look at Veeam's free offering it might help.

 

It doesn't (yet) officially support 2012 but may be worth a look.

 

Free virtual machine backup - Veeam Backup

 

Veeam Backup Free Edition allows you to quick migrate and is quicker than copying individual files accross the network between datastores/hosts

Edited October 19, 2012 by Davit2005

[morganw]

My question is, does anyone know the benefits of Exporting versus copying and pasting? We have a lot of VMs to move and its a time consuming process to Export.

 

I imagine an export will include VM metadata and properly maintain a VHD chain. You could monitor the network interface to see if it's verifying the export after it's been made, that might explain the massive speed difference as it would read the file back from the NAS again after it's been written.

[Bruce123]

I am not that familar with Hyper-V clusters, but I do know that an Export of a VM will include the configuation of the VM (such as any virtual hardware configuration).

 

An Export can be done on a VM that is in Running or Shutdown or Suspended State.

 

An Export of a Running VM depends heavily of the VSS Service.

An Export of a Suspended VM also includes a snapshot of the memory/registers.

An Export of a Suspended or Shutdown VM should be faster than an Export of a Running VM (due to the latter requiring the VSS service).

 

If you simply copy the VHD files I understand that you have no option but to shutdown the VM first (to release the lock on the VHD files), and it won't automatically include the configuration files.

 

Depending on what you're doing your best bet might be to Shutdown the VMs, then Export... You get a fast Export, knowing that it includes all the VHDs and config of the VM.

 

Thanks,

 

Bruce.

Edited October 23, 2012 by Bruce123