IT Solutions Blog | Trigon Technology

IT Support | Hyper-V Storage Options

  

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When designing a Hyper-V environment there are a few methods to consider when provisioning virtual machine storage.  Below is a high level overview of the DAS and SAN options:

• Direct Attached Storage:

1. Create a directory on your Hyper-V host’s data drive which will be used to house your virtual machines.  All VHD's will reside on this volume and within this folder.
2. Mark one of the host’s data disks as offline then configure it as a pass-through disk directly to your VM.  This method is best suited for data volumes within a VM, not the system volume.

• Storage Area Network

1. Carve out a LUN and connect it to your host(s) as a data volume.  Create a folder and store your VM's and VHD's within this volume.
2. Carve out a LUN, connect it your host(s), mark it offline, then use it has a pass-through disk in a VM, just like if you were using DAS as a pass-through disk.
3. Carve out a LUN, load the iSCSI Initiator within your VM, then connecting the LUN directly to your VM, completely bypassing the host.  This is not considered a pass-through configuration.  It is more akin to option 1 and can really help eliminate the layers I/O overhead present in the other options.

This was just a quick overview as there are obviously many more considerations to take into account depending on the type of shared storage you are using, how your backup scheme is configured, performance and disk I/O requirements, as well as the type of disks and controllers being used.