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We have a cluster of 3 x 2008 R2 physical hosts running Hyper-V.

How do I safely move the VHD(s) and accompanying XML files, etc, for a specific VM to a new location? I want to keep the VM with the same name in the same cluster - just relocate the actual data files.

Note - we do not have SCVMM.

Kez
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  • There are no snapshots associated with the VM's. – Kez Dec 18 '13 at 14:56
  • I'm looking at a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V cluster at the moment so I don't remember if these options exist in Windows Server 2008 R2 but for a non-clustered VM you should be able to right click the VM in Hyper-V Manager and select "Move" then select the option to move the virtual machines's storage. For a clustered VM you should be able to right click the VM in Failover Cluster manager and select Move... Virtual Machine Storage. In neither case should exporting the VM be necessary. – joeqwerty Dec 18 '13 at 15:38

2 Answers2

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You can export your VM.

  1. Shutdown the VM
  2. Export the VM to an external drive
  3. Copy to the new Server
  4. Import the VM in Hyper-V on the new Server
  5. Boot the VM on the new Server
  6. Test and verify it's working before removing the initial VM.

Here's an article with some more information/walk through.

colealtdelete
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    If you have snapshots, this is the only way as well without using SCVMM to migrate. – DanBig Dec 18 '13 at 14:40
  • Thanks for the info - I am not planning on moving to another server, just the location of the data files locally, i.e. from one drive to another. Would this still apply? Would I just need to delete the remnants of the VM within Failover Cluster Manager before importing it again? Thanks! – Kez Dec 18 '13 at 15:01
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    @Kez yes you can export the files to another location as well with this method. I wouldn't advise deleting the original VM before testing. You may need to remove it from inventory though or rename it. – colealtdelete Dec 18 '13 at 16:23
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Don't know about Hyper-v in Win 2008 R2 but in Windows Server 2012 hyper-v:

  1. Shutdown or Save the VM(I think you can do it even when the VM is running, not sure though).
  2. Right click on the VM and choose Move.
  3. Select "Move the virtual machine's storage".
DarkMoon
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Jalali Shakib
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