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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Hot Add / Remove Storage - How?
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Hot Add / Remove Storage - How?
- Hi all,
I've recently upgraded our Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 machine to R2,
primarily to get the hot add/remove of storage that was a listed feature
(although I swear the virtual machines are running faster in R2, which is
great!).
Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the hot add/remove functionality working.
When I performed the upgrade, it was a clean install with exported and then
imported VMs.
When I choose "Settings..." on a running virtual machine, and select the
(preconfigured when the machine was off) SCSI Controller, I can't choose
"Add" a new hard drive. The message is "some settings cannot be modified
because the virtual machine was running" as was the case in R1.
I've installed the R2 integration tools onto the guest OS, which is Windows
SBS 2008. Do I need an updated version of the Hyper-V Management Tools for Windows Vista? Is there a Hyper-V Manager R2 that I'm missing?
I'm a bit stumped, to be honest, and I'm not sure whether I'm missing
something.
Any pointers will be greatly received. If there's any further information
that I can provide then just let me know.
Many thanks in advance,
Mark.
Answers
- That is correct - hot-add requires Hyper-V Manager from Windows 7 or a full installation of Windows Server 2008 R2, plus a Hyper-V machine running the R2 release. Note that you can still script the hot add (or remove) in lieu of the UI.
Thanks,
John.
John Howard, Senior Program Manager, Hyper-V Team
~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.- Marked As Answer byVincent HuMSFT, ModeratorMonday, September 21, 2009 7:13 AM
- Proposed As Answer byNathan Lasnoski Saturday, September 19, 2009 12:56 PM
All Replies
- Hi,Mark
did you upgrade intergration service on your virtual machine after upgraded to R2 ?
refarence:Description of methods to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 from Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/957256/en-us
method1
After the upgrade, update the Integration Services. To do this, open the Virtual Machine Connection window,
and then click Insert Integration Services Setup Disk on the Action menu.
http://techbank.jp/nora/(SQL Serverを中心に情報発信中) - Hi! :)Yes I did indeed - not sure how to confirm but the driver version on my synthetic network card is 6.1.7600.16385 which I believe indicates the R2 version of the Integration Services.I wondered if it was that I needed a newer version of the Hyper-V Manager Tools that knows to let me hot add / remove. I'm currently administering the VMs from a Vista machine.Cheers,Mark.
- Hello,
You should be able to hot add storage associated with a SCSI controller in the virtual machine settings. Can you try that from the Hyper-V R2 Management Console? Thanks,
Nathan Lasnoski - Hi Nathan,Apologies in advance if I've misunderstood your request... I go into Hyper-V Manager on my Windows Vista machine and select the virtual machine in question, right clicking and choosing "Settings...", then selecting the SCSI controller in the left hand tree-view of the settings window. I would expect at this point to be able to click "Add" to add a new Hard Drive/VHD but all the relevant settings are greyed out (http://www.screenshots.cc/show/46879/skpdf).Many thanks for any pointers!Mark.
Hello,
I ran the Hyper-V Manager from a basic Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V server and got the same results as you. I think it has something to do with the Hyper-V Manager / platform. I suspect that if you run Hyper-V Manager from a Windows Server 2008 R2 server, you'll be able to use the new capability. I also suspect that you can get the functionality by fully upgrading the Hyper-V manager you're running.
Nathan Lasnoski- Proposed As Answer byNathan Lasnoski Saturday, September 19, 2009 12:56 PM
- Hi Nathan,I'll try and get hold of a Server 2008 R2 image to test that theory! A bit of a pain though if I have to hold a WinServer2k8 R2 virtual machine to do this management. Unless anyone watching knows where I can upgrade my Hyper-V Manager?All this is because I want to use server backup functionality inside my SBS 2008 VM to backup to a hard disk in a drive caddy. It connects via SATA and what I really need is the ability to hot swap easily within the VM. The ideal situation would be no need to do any manual software connecting at all, just put the next backup drive in.I've considered using a private network to write to a share on the host but it seems like a rather convoluted way of achieving something that really should be straightforward. I'm hoping that the new hot add / remove functionality might help me to achieve the goal here...Thanks for your input Nathan.Mark.
- That is correct - hot-add requires Hyper-V Manager from Windows 7 or a full installation of Windows Server 2008 R2, plus a Hyper-V machine running the R2 release. Note that you can still script the hot add (or remove) in lieu of the UI.
Thanks,
John.
John Howard, Senior Program Manager, Hyper-V Team
~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~----~
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.- Marked As Answer byVincent HuMSFT, ModeratorMonday, September 21, 2009 7:13 AM
- Proposed As Answer byNathan Lasnoski Saturday, September 19, 2009 12:56 PM
- Hi John and thanks for clearing this up,Do you know if there are any plans to release an updated Hyper-V manager that can perform the hot add/remove in Vista?Scripting sounds like a reasonable option (albeit not as friendly) whilst waiting for a UI option - I'll try and track down some documentation on this and have a read.Whilst we've got you here, can you tell me whether it's possible to achieve the kind of hot-swap I'm looking for? I.e. For a non-techie user to be able to simply remove one drive from the SATA caddy in the host and replace it with a different drive and for the new drive to be automatically picked up in the Windows SBS guest OS?Many thanks!Mark.
- Hi guys and thanks all of you for your help on this,
I can confirm that after downloading an evaluation VHD for Windows Server 2008 R2 and enabling the Hyper-V manager within it, I was able to hot add/remove storage (and what a feature it is ;-)). My guest machines are still running the NON R2 version of Windows Server / Windows SBS so it's not necessary to have the R2 edition running inside the VHD to benefit from hot add/remove (which makes sense).
The release of Hyper-V management tools for Windows Vista that enable the hot add/remove functionality should definitely be on the to-do list, in my opinion.
So, I'm left with a single, related question. I have a SATA drive which I'm using for an SBS backup inside the guest OS. Naturally, I'd like to rotate drives for this backup (I actually have three drives, which are in SATA caddys). So this is the real world use of the hot add/remove.
I can achieve hot swap by:
1. Remove the Virtual Pass Through Drive that represents the SATA backup drive in Hyper-V Manager.
2. Swap the Drive over in the Host machine.
3. Add the Virtual Pass Through Drive that represents the (newly swapped in) SATA backup drive in Hyper-V Manager.
The person who swaps the drive, however, is not techie enough (nor would I want to give access to the Hyper-V passwords) to carry out this procedure. Ideally I'd like to get this process back to that which it would be in a physical machine... i.e.
1. Swap the Drive over in the machine.
Obviously in a physical machine the hot swap would occur with no need for any action on the machine being hot swapped?
Is this possible with a virtual machine?
Many thanks in advance,
Mark. Hi,
Q: Do you know if there are any plans to release an updated Hyper-V manager that can perform the hot add/remove in Vista?
>> I don’t think there will be any update for this.
For you another question, I wonder what’s the type of your SATA caddy. If it’s a USB device, you may can’t swap the disk. For more information, you can refer to:
Backup SBS 2008 VM in Hyper-V Server 2008
Best Regards,
Vincent Hu
- Hi Vincent,
Sorry for the delay, I've been MIA for a couple of weeks.
It's a bit of a downer that there will be no update, as it makes it very difficult for us to manage our Hyper-V storage given that all our machines are on Windows Vista and there are no plans for an upgrade to Windows 7 in the near future. We also have servers running on R1, which means that the only way we can manage hot-storage is to maintain a virtual machine specifically for this purpose, which is a real bind.
Anyway, to answer your question, the storage is an ICYBOX internal caddy, connected via SATA, so shouldn't be a problem there. As I mentioned, I can achieve a hot swap successfully if I go through the steps of removing and readding the storage in the manager tool. Hot swapping works fine on the host machine.
What I'm looking for is to enable automatic hot-swapping on the client SBS machine also. Do you know of a way to do this? I was really hoping it would be built in - the only other way I can think is if a script could be written to detect a hot-plug event on the host and then automatically carry out the disconnect and reconnect that the hyper-v management tool would otherwise be used for.
My scripting skills at current, however, are non-existent and therefore I've no idea if that could actually be achieved.
Appreciative of any advice!
Mark.
