Hyper-V bin file consuming disk space.

May 26, 2009, 6:52 am

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Hi,
  
Host OS Configuration:- Windows 2008 Enterprise ,Hyper-V with KB950050 (64bit) update.
Host Hardware Configuration:- Xeon X7350@ 2.9 GHz x 4 CPU / 64 GB

I installed virtual servers on Hyper-V and found that everytime ".bin" file( with GUID) in snapshot folder ( default path is - C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines - this location can be changed using the snapshot location settings in Hyper-V settings) consuming disk space exactly same as memory configured for the guest OS in host system disk.It get disappeared when the guest OS became down.
we require to configure virtual servers with 20 GB RAM or more & found it requires additional disk same as RAM allocated in host system apart from the VHD allocating.

Does this mandatory ? i didnt find any MS article stating anything about it.
there is no snapshot created in hyper-v for virtual servers anyway.
Can we avoid this additional disk space requirement ?

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Physical files size is not equal to disk space of SAN

July 23, 2012, 1:04 am

≫ Next: converting server 2003 R2 SP2 x64 to a Hyper V vm in Server 2008 R2 SP1

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Dear Sir/Madam,

It would be great if you can help.

In server 2008 R2 hyper v environment, a D driver (SAN) is used to store hyper-v files (e.g .VHD)

by explorer in this physical server, I selected all files and try to see how many size they use, windows prompted that 4XX GB has been used (Location: All in D:\)

However, by checking the disk properties, it shows the Used space is 7XXGB (NTFS)

I have tried to check whether there is any hidden files used the space, but it seems that this is not the reason.

In the VMs , all of them are using Dynamically Expanding Virtual Hard Disk, some of them have snapshots.

Is that the dynamic VHD have been reserved the physical disk spaces ?or this is the problem related to the VSS backup (for detail, please refer to http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverhyperv/thread/4a6481a6-57e2-47c0-8145-33a3f29b48e9?

Thanks for your help

Keith

converting server 2003 R2 SP2 x64 to a Hyper V vm in Server 2008 R2 SP1

August 2, 2011, 12:56 pm

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Im having a bear of time doing a P2V server 2003 x64. In the past, I used Disk2vhd, but install the guest services before hand. With this, I get the "error starting operating system" even if I do a repair install on the vhd. I know the scvmm is what is the recommended solution, but I just want to make my intentions clear here; I dont need scvmm for anything other than the single conversion. In most cases, i will be taking a small LAN, one DC and converting to Hyper V vm (too many good reasons to list) and having to have multiple servers to do the conversion process isnt in the cards. I want to be able to convert to vhd, load 2008R2 with Hyper V or Hyper V server on the same source server hardware and then start the vhd and continue on. In this case, I will be upgrading from 2003 to 2008, but want to do the upgrade as a vm, not a physical machine (again, too many good reasons to list).

Soo., how does a guy convert a server 2003 R2 x64 SP1 server to a 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper V guest VM...without having to have a separate server with scvmm, and another with the hyper v client on? I want to just convert to vhd (sent to either an external hdd or network share) and then rebuild source machine as the hyper v host.

Seems that MS has nothing documented that I can find regarding P2V conversion on a small business scale, and not a large  enterprise level operation.

 

Much appreciate any assistance.

 

Shayne

Setting up a virtual domain stack today vs 1.5 years ago...any differences?

July 23, 2012, 12:02 pm

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A year and a half or so ago, I scoured the web about running domain controllers in a VM and got some great info.

Today, I'm going thru my document and need to know if I still need to do the following in order to setup my virtual AD stack:

Disable the use of cached credentials (Ben Armstrong's Blog Post):

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
2. Find the entry called cachedlogonscount and change it to 0

Fix the DNS up when the domain controller starts (Ben Armstrong's Blog Post):

1. Create a batch file called FixDNS.cmd with these lines and setup a task to run it at startup:
   1. Ipconfig /flushdns
   2. Ipconfig /registerdns
   3. Nltest /dsregdns

Setup time sync; several registry hacks noted at the end of this (colorful) blog post. (Or does this post from Ben negate the use of the reg hacks mentioned in the other post?)

I know; lots of questions...I'm appreciative of any help!

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Bill Hagen, Owner That Computer Geek Newberg, OR www.thatcomputergeek.com

Bottleneck/High usage on CPU 0 on Hyper-V Guest directly related to network traffic

July 25, 2012, 10:05 am

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Hi Everyone!

I am experiencing a problem where Hyper-V guest virtual machines show very high CPU usage on core 0 (causing other applications to slow down and the VM to be less responsive) with what I would consider to be relatively little network traffic. There is a definite correlation between network traffic and CPU usage as the former always brings the later.

Occasionally, I can achieve 90-100MBps on some servers going through a VM Bus Network Adapter connected to a dual gigabit physical adapter team, but, this gives 60-90% CPU usage on core 0 inside the VM with all other cores showing ~0% usage. Most of the time, 50-80MBps will give the same 60-90% CPU usage on core 0. This seems to happen regardless of the number of cores assigned to the VM, 1-4 makes no difference.

I am aware that RSS is not supported on VM Bus Network Adapters, to spread the load across the available cores, but I thought that using a VM Bus Network Adapter was meant to be some what faster due to it having a direct connection to the physical host server. I have also configured VMQ, to try and speed things up.

It seems to me that the speed of the network connection is limited by the speed of the processor. With the general rule of thumb that a 1 Gbps adapter with no offloading capabilities will use 1Ghz worth or processing power, adding 25% for a VM giving 1.25Ghz, meaning that my VM with 2.6Ghz CPU and 10Gbps VM Bus Network Adapter is only capable of 2Gbps throughput maximum, and wont be able to do anything else whilst doing that due to CPU 0 being maxed out even if the rest of the cores aren't.

The bottom line is that I seem to be missing the point, or missing a vital piece of information, that will allow high network bandwidth without bottlenecking at CPU 0 on my VM's.

How can I achieve high network throughput on VM's without wasting valuable CPU cycles? Is it possible to offload processing from the VM to elsewhere?

For clarity, our setup is as follows:

Hyper-V Hosts
2 x Dell PER715 with 2 x 8 Core AMD Op 6140, 64GB RAM, 12 x Bcm 5709C NICs with TOE and iSCSI Offload
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacentre SP1 in a 2 node Hyper-V failover cluster
All software, firmware and drivers up to date
VMQ configured and enabled for all virtual networks

Hyper-V Guests
Any Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

SAN
2 Node DataCore iSCSI SAN on the back end

On the R715(s)
2 x iSCSI direct to the host for guest vhds
2 x iSCSI virtual network direct to guest VM
1 x Team with 2 x 1Gbps for VM access
Other NICs for cluster and management

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated. If any further information is required, please don't hesitate to ask!

Many thanks in advance,

Tom

SCSI Virtual Disks - Can we make them non-removable?

December 17, 2011, 11:15 am

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When we use SCSI disks in Hyper-V guests, apparently the system considers them removable and puts the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray. 

Problem is, this is on a SQL server and there's a risk that an admin (in a moment of inattentiveness) will accidentally click one of the entries and thus "disconnect" the disk from a running production server.

Using the Start menu preferences, we can "hide" the icon but it's not really hidden.  A double arrow "<<" is shown in the systray and clicking it reveals the Safely Remove Hardware icon again.

There are many virtual disks on this SQL server (system, databases, logs, etc)-- more disks than available IDE channels, so "not using SCSI" is not an option.

Is it possible to configure the virtual SCSI disks such that they cannot be hot-removed, and thus the Safely Remove Hardware icon will not be displayed?

 

hyper-v host and hyper-v virtual machines licensing

July 23, 2012, 9:29 am

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I am really confusing about windows server licensing in virtual environment, please someone to educate me to prevent a possibility of license violation I may have here!

I understand one windows 2008 standard server allows only one instance of virtual but how would the licenses come to play?

I installed one windows 2008 standard (hyper-v), I installed one physical license. This is the Host!

I installed one instance of vm which should be free - but I have to put in production key and activate it any how, this costs me one paid license.

I installed one extra instance of vm, I put in production key and activate windows. This cost one paid license.

In total, I have one host and two vms, and I paid for 3 licenses.

Do I violate any MS license here in virtual environment? I only have standard version! Thanks.

Hyper-V time Sync problem

July 25, 2012, 1:50 am

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Greetings everyone.

Yesterday we had a time problem over one of our production servers, 2008R2, I had not too much to investigate why it was caused, cause it was urgent to solve it, but maybe anyone here could lend me a hand in figuring why it was caused and avoid it happening again.

Any further investigation overt this problematic machine won't be possible, it was a virtual one which, for other reason, needed to be deleted, the physical is working again.

I'll try to explain the problem:

Yesterday, at 4PM, the machine suddenly changed his hour to 1AM of today (+9 hours), event viewer just showed and information message like "System time and date has been changed" by system service.This server was w32tm synced to es.pool.ntp.org, forzing the resync just let the correct time for about 20 secs, then it would go wrong again.

Forzing it with cmd time date, or control panel, same result.

So I checked hyper-V time sync from his physical machine, which we manually deactivated when we NTPed it, somehow it was activated, as soon as I deactivated it, time was again synced correctly with NTP.The time in the physical machine was correct all the time.

So the questions I would like to get solved would be:

-Why would hyper-v time sync mess up the virtual machines, even if hyper-V host time is correct? is there any way to fix this if its a known bug?

-Why would hyper-V time sync reactivate itself alone? any way to ensure this won't happen again?

All our enviroment is running under Hyper-V, if this has happened in this machine I would need a way to diagnose/fix it so it won't happen in anymore, sorry for not being able to give you more data about the problem we have, but I could add anything you need if its not "problematic machine related".

Regards.

Carlos.

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KB2263829 Gives "Not Applicable" Error

July 24, 2012, 10:59 am

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I have two new servers with 2008 R2 SP1, with Hyper-V Role and Failover Clustering.  When I try to install KB2263829 I get a message indicating that it is not applicable.  Is there a log I can look at to see why it thinks it is not applicable?  This is a fresh install, so no VMs, yet.

Converting a VM / VHD

July 26, 2012, 6:33 am

≫ Next: Virtual Machine and Host Network adapter performance tuning / settings

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Is it true that during a conversion from a dynamic disk to a fixed disk, a compact is performed; therefore I would not need to do a compact before converting?

I have three VMs that are in a very busy production environment. They are all dynamic and I want to convert them to fixed.

In addition to answering my above question, any hints people can give me before I do this are appreciated. I am converting an old, unused VM as a test. One thing I have already learned is to make sure I have enough disk space for a COPY of the VHD file, since a new one is created.

Other suggestions?

Virtual Machine and Host Network adapter performance tuning / settings

July 26, 2012, 7:08 am

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Can one of you hyper-v gurus please tell me what the best settings are for my network adapters on my VMs and on my hosts?

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Cathy Burnham, MCSA

How do I reinstall a Hyper-V host without exporting/importing VMs?

July 26, 2012, 9:27 am

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I need to reinstall the host OS with the least possible downtime for the VMs?  From what I've read, you have to shut down a VM in order to export it, and the export process is slow.  Since the VMs include the company Exchange server and domain controller, I need to have as little down time as possible.

The host OS is on its own partition, so I would like to format/reinstall the host on that partition and leave the VHDs where they are at.  I hope to then be able to install Hyper-V on the host and restart the VMs.  Is this possible?

Thanks

5 NIC Cards in my NEW HP Proliant Server - Can i take advantage of this with Hyper-V

July 25, 2012, 3:16 pm

≫ Next: Hyper-V Virtual Network Setting - Slow internet

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My 2 New HP Proliant Servers have 10 1GB NIC Cards each (5 Internal and 5 NIC CARD Slots).  One NIC is used for the ILO Remote Support Connection.  If i don't do any load balancing or anything like that is there any benefit in having any of the NIC Cards turned on.  I currently have 5 Ports HOT on each server but after reading multiple articles I'm not sure if the other ports are going to provide any benefits.  I've obtain 10 Static IP addresses from our DNS Department, but I'm reading articles that i can only have one Subnet assigned for multiple NICS.  So my question is ??? Are there any benefits other than NLB in having these multiple NIC CARDS turned on.

Thanks

Derek

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Derek

Hyper-V Virtual Network Setting - Slow internet

July 26, 2012, 3:05 pm

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I am having a weird issue with my Hyper-V server. When I setup an external network using Physical NIC, the internet on the host OS gets really really slow. As soon as I remove the external connection from Virtual Network Manager everything start working fine.

ENV: Home-Test environment

OS: Win server 2008 R2 Std

Hyper-V Version: 6.1.7601.17514

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sam.

CPU frusterations

July 26, 2012, 2:16 pm

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Greetings,

  I've been trying to do some analysis, and I'm struggling.  First, I want to give my HyperV guests more CPU processing on the Host without just adding processors.  It frusterates me that this is not possible!  I feel like my Hyper-V hosts are being underutilized by the guests and I do not have any control over that.

How can I determine, simply, how much processing a Hypervisor is using?  Simply looking at the CPU of the host OS does not seem to answer that question, as I understand it's just another 'partition' to the hypervisor.

However, my host OSs do get MORE CPU time than my guests.  Even if I create a VM with as many vCPUs as physical CPUs the machine is still not using all the power available to it.

So, to summarize:

How can I determine, simply, how much CPU a Hypervisor is using?

Can I give my Hyper-V guests more physical CPU?

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Issue with jitter/packet loss Hyper-V server, disconnected RDP sessions

July 25, 2012, 9:05 pm

≫ Next: Move Virtual Machines from one drive to another

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Hi all,

Just a weird issue I experienced today, and was wondering if anyone had any insight. We have two legacy Hyper-V hosts, IBM x3650 7979, broadcom NetXtreme II cards with two ports (one VM traffic, one mgmt). Both running Windows 2008 R2 SP1.

From about 5:20pm last night, we notice very high latency to both hosts, and all the VMs.

Copying files from the host would cause the host and all VMs to have even higher latency and packet loss.

I had a session logged into one host, to investigate - I had reconnected to an existing administrative session. There was nothing running though, no processes chewing the network/disk/cpu etc. But when I logged off completely, the issue went away?

With the other host, there was an administrative session which when logged off was resolved.

Has anyone seen this before? Seems very strange.

Cheers
Gareth

Move Virtual Machines from one drive to another

July 26, 2012, 11:42 pm

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I'm Microsoft Partner and for test and demos purposes I use virtual machines in Hyper-V (Windows Server 2008 R2 running on a Toshiba laptop).

At the moment I have 6 different VMs stored in an external 320 Go HDD (Drive 1). As I'm running out of space, I bought a 512 Go SSD (Drive 2) and I  need to move all my VMs to this new drive. In Hyper-V settings, all the VMs are stored in  "I:\" (Drive 1)

I want to be sure that I won't have any problem, so I want advice about the following procedure :

- I'll copy all the files and folders from the "Drive 1" to "Drive 2", keeping exactly the same directory structure,

- I'll connect the "Drive 2" and launch WS 2008 R2 and Hyper-V. All the VM will be with "saved critical" status,

- In the "Computer Management", Storage, Disk management, I'll change Drive Letter from "X:\" to "I:\" and reboot the computer,

- After rebooting my VMs should be available in the new SSD Drive as it was on the former one.

Has anyone ever done that before and could give me feedback?

I tried to use export/import procedure as described on Microsoft information but I got some virtual network issues and my virtual environment (2 connected VMs) didn't work anymore.

How does a Physical NIC forwards a Packet(With virtual NIC address) to virtual NIC??

July 24, 2012, 1:42 am

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It is know that a NIC accepts a packet only if its own address is given as a destination address in the packet.

Let us assume two physical systems(A and B) are connect in a network using a switch. The System B is having a virtual system(C) in it.

For System "C" a Virtual NIC is built to participate in communication.  

How does the System B's NIC accepts the packets destined to the virtual system C?? How does it forwards the packets to Virtual NIC of System C?? 

how to dual boot windows server 2012 RC

July 26, 2012, 11:47 pm

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Hi

I am using windows server 2012 RC . I want to dual boot my machine with linux operating syatem , I have also made an partion for that but my O.S. is not showing that partition(It shows complete harddisk). I think the O. S. is not reconising the file system for windows server 2012 . Can anybody knows how to dual boot windows server 2012 RC.

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neer

Hypervisor - Hyperthreaded vs non-hyperthreading

April 25, 2012, 5:23 pm

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Hello again!

Does anyone have any performance data on having hyper threading enabled vs disabled?   Is there still a performance boost these days with the newer CPUs?    

I think Hyperthreading might be unnecessary because it was a way of making up for fewer cores (ok that's not the official reason, but work with me here).

We are using dual Xeon 5690's (6 cores each - 12 with Hyper threading, 24 total),  NUMA aware. 

Thanks

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Dane!