Learn this information to learn to create a baby Hyper-V VM utilizing a differencing disk that factors to a guardian disk.
Overview and Necessities
Making a VM with a baby disk pointing to a differencing disk is useful in situations the place it’s essential to deploy VMs shortly with out putting in the OS on them manually.
Nonetheless, to do that, the next necessities should be met:
- The kid and guardian digital disks should be of the identical format – that’s, VHD or VHDX
- The guardian disk should be syspreped, and the VM should shut down.
If the VM is joined to the area, Once you run Sysprep, it disjoins the VM from the area.
Step 1: Put together the Mother or father Digital Disk
Step 1.1: Create a VM
Create a Technology 2 VM with a VHDX. For those who need assistance doing this, learn Create the Hyper-V Digital Machines.
Step 1.2: Set up OS, Patch, and Sysprep
After constructing the VM, set up the OS, patch it, and set up all apps you wish to be within the guardian digital disk. Lastly, run Sysprep with the Generarize, shutdown choice.
When Sysprep is accomplished, and the VM shuts down, rename the digital disk to one thing descriptive of its contents. Then, copy it to a location the place you retailer digital disks.
In my instance, I renamed mine Veeam_Base and copied it to my lab’s VMM library share.
Step 2: Create a Differencing Disk
You possibly can create a differencing disks with the Hyper-V Supervisor however I like to make use of PowerShell as it’s quicker. Here’s a pattern command I used to create my differencing disk.
New-VHD -ParentPath G:SharesVMMLibraryVHDsVeeam_Base.vhdx -Path "C:ClusterStorageVolume1IPMvVeeamVirtual Onerous DisksVeeam_VM_1.vhdx" -Differencing
Step 3: Create a VM with the Differencing Disk
I used the PowerShell command beneath to create a VM utilizing the differencing disk. You might also use Hyper-V Supervisor.
New-VM -Identify IPMvVeeam -MemoryStartupBytes 2GB -VHDPath "C:ClusterStorageVolume1IPMvVeeamVirtual Onerous DisksVeeam_VM_1.vhdx" -Technology 2 -SwitchName Mgt-vSwitch -Path "C:ClusterStorageVolume1IPMvVeeamVirtual Machines"
See the screenshot beneath to display the advantage of making a VM with a differencing disk.
The guardian disk is 39GB, whereas the kid disk is 626 MB!
Step 4: Full the OS Set up on the VM
Once you begin the VM, it should load the OOB.
Full the set up, rename the pc, assign a static IP and be a part of the VM to the area.
Conclusion
Creating VMs with a differencing disk gives a fast approach to roll out VMs with out reinstalling the Working System and all apps.
On this information, I defined the steps to finish this job, and I hope you discovered it useful. Please reply to the query, “Was this web page useful?” to provide suggestions about this information.
