sglee
asked on
Converting Physical Machine to Virtual Machine
Hi,
I have a physical server running SBS2011 and need to move it to HyperV 2016 as a virtual machine and looking for most time efficient way possible to minimize downtime.
For testing, I have used Disk2VHD and it took 27 hours to create VHDs in an external USB hard drive via 2.0 USB connection. Moving these VHDs into a new HyperV server will take a lot less because new server has USB 3.0 interface. But now sure how much less time it would save.
I would prefer Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter because it is one step process , but in a test environment, I am running into errors. So at this point, I don't know how long MVMC would take to copy all these data over Gigabit Ethernet network.
Here is what each drive contains:
C Drive (130GB): SBS2011 OS, large paging file (25GB), programs such as backup software ... etc.
E Drive (800GB): user files and folders and EXCHANGE DATABASE.
F Drive (220GB): copy of software CDs like Microsoft Office 2013, ISO files, drivers for printers & hardware devices ... etc.
F drive contents don't change daily and can be separately handled. But E drive is what people depend on - files and folders during regular work hours and Exchange server that changes 24x7.
It almost like if I can create a new virtual machine, in advance, in Hyper V server (with all the data from SBS) first in one weekend and then the following weekend if I can import changes since I create VM, that would be the most efficient way of doing it. But applying changes in Exchange server is going to be a problem. For that, I like to do it in one shot/weekend.
How would you do this if you were in charge of this migration?
I have a physical server running SBS2011 and need to move it to HyperV 2016 as a virtual machine and looking for most time efficient way possible to minimize downtime.
For testing, I have used Disk2VHD and it took 27 hours to create VHDs in an external USB hard drive via 2.0 USB connection. Moving these VHDs into a new HyperV server will take a lot less because new server has USB 3.0 interface. But now sure how much less time it would save.
I would prefer Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter because it is one step process , but in a test environment, I am running into errors. So at this point, I don't know how long MVMC would take to copy all these data over Gigabit Ethernet network.
Here is what each drive contains:
C Drive (130GB): SBS2011 OS, large paging file (25GB), programs such as backup software ... etc.
E Drive (800GB): user files and folders and EXCHANGE DATABASE.
F Drive (220GB): copy of software CDs like Microsoft Office 2013, ISO files, drivers for printers & hardware devices ... etc.
F drive contents don't change daily and can be separately handled. But E drive is what people depend on - files and folders during regular work hours and Exchange server that changes 24x7.
It almost like if I can create a new virtual machine, in advance, in Hyper V server (with all the data from SBS) first in one weekend and then the following weekend if I can import changes since I create VM, that would be the most efficient way of doing it. But applying changes in Exchange server is going to be a problem. For that, I like to do it in one shot/weekend.
How would you do this if you were in charge of this migration?
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