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Dealing with VHDX files

Modern Art

Article from ADMIN 17/2013

By Thomas Joos

VHDX files introduce some improvements over the legacy virtual hard disk format. In this article, we review some of the interesting features.

Hyper-V virtual hard disk (VHDX) files not only have more capacity than the standard VHD files, they are also far less likely to be corrupted as the result of a server failure or hard reset. VHD files can be destroyed very quickly when the host system encounters problems – but not so with VHDX files. If you use Windows Server 2012, you normally create VHD files as an iSCSI target; Windows Server 2012 already supports VHDX files but can only use them with Hyper-V, not iSCSI, targets.

Now Available for iSCSI

The new Windows Server 2012 R2, however, can use VHDX disks as iSCSI targets. The VHDX hard drives you create also can be managed directly in the System Center products as of Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. Windows Server 2012 R2 provides the option of assigning the disk to multiple virtual servers. Shared VHDX technology primarily offers benefits in operations with Hyper-V R2 2012.

Also new in Windows Server 2012 R2 is the option to change the size of virtual hard disks on the fly, but you need to shut down the associated virtual server in Windows Server 2012. Also, you can now export and copy virtual servers on the fly in Windows Server 2012 R2.

Using VHDX Files

To manage virtual hard disks outside of Hyper-V, right-click Disk Management and choose Create VHD , which starts the wizard. In the wizard, you need to decide where you want to save the VHDX file on your hard drive and what size the hard disk should be. At this point, you also determine whether the disk can grow or whether you want to use a fixed size.

If you select Attach VHD , you can connect an existing disk to the computer (Figure 1). You can double-click a VHD(X) file to this, too. After you have created the virtual hard disk, Windows displays it in

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