Merge the differencing disks of SCVMM virtual machines and remove checkpoints (shapshots) that are difficult to remove

Using Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) sometimes causes the dynamic and fixed disks of a virtual machine to become differencing disks, which should be related to a differential backup of DPM, which causes the original disk type to be undone after a differential backup of DPM, for unknown reasons. And in Hyper-V manager, you see a very multi-layered layer of tree-dependent checkpoints, with backup words in these checkpoints names that cannot be removed through Hyper-V manager. It is also not possible to delete from the command line, which appears in the file system as a large number of XML files in the Shapshots folder in the virtual machine directory. However, the number of checkpoints has 50 caps, and if these checkpoints are not removed, DPM cannot continue to back up this virtual machine. Then we have to manually merge these differencing disks and violently delete these checkpoints. The following operations need to shut down the virtual machine, and there is a risk, please backup the relevant files before operation. 650) this.width=650; "title=" image "style=" border-left-0px; border-right-width:0px; Background-image:none; border-bottom-width:0px; Float:none; padding-top:0px; padding-left:0px; Margin-left:auto; Display:block; padding-right:0px; border-top-width:0px; Margin-right:auto "border=" 0 "alt=" image "src=" http://s3.51cto.com/wyfs02/M02/8C/BC/ Wkiom1h14dzjaqgpaaa4gpqrh5e892.png "width=" 623 "height=" 243 "/>

1. Before you remove the differencing disk from the virtual machine in SCVMM, be sure to choose not to remove it from the physical server, that is, to keep the differencing disks in case you want to merge independently, back up all differencing disks beforehand.

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2. On the physical server node where the virtual machine resides, use the Edit disk feature of Hyper-V manager, but when choosing locate disk, it is important to note that you must start the merge from the latest differencing disk. If there are multiple differencing disks, the relationship between them is a tree-like structure, and if the implementation merges the previous one, then the next one will not be able to find its parent disk. You can merge to the parent disk, if the hierarchy is very large, it takes time and effort to do it one time, or the whole merge is saved to another location, note that the saved file name is consistent with the previous differencing disk file name (the differencing disk consists of 1 file vhdx and multiple AVHDX, This is the difference. The disk file name refers to the original, the VHDX file name, for later use.

If you check the difference disk, the tool will appear with the merge option

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Complete the merge

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3. After the differencing disk has been merged, you can delete all differencing disks in the Virtual machine directory (a backup is confirmed before deletion), copy the merged solid state disk or dynamic disk into the virtual machine directory, and add the disk to the virtual machine in SCVMM. At this point, the virtual machine can be started normally with the new merged disk, but these backup checkpoints are still, can not be deleted anyway, after trying hyper-V manage and the following command cannot be deleted: Get-vmsnapshot-vmname Vmwithcheckpoint.domain.com-computername hyper-v.domain.com | Remove-vmsnapshot. Then the next use of violence.

In Services.msc, the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service is stopped (under SCVMM management, the service starts automatically, but has a window period of several seconds), and then directly deletes the Shapeshots folder in the VM directory. After you start Hyper-V virtual machine management, the virtual machines in Hyper-V Manager are missing, and the virtual machines in SCVMM render missing state. You can imagine that Hyper-V virtual machine management cannot find the checkpoints file for the VM and cannot associate the virtual machine. But don't worry, we can re-import the virtual machine through Hyper-V Manager, select Restore on import, so the folder points to the original virtual machine directory, and when you select checkpoints, be careful to select Delete checkpoints. Everything is back when it's done.

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Note When deleting checkpoints, it must be built on the merge differencing disk, and the virtual machine configuration is not significantly changed, in short, each checkpoints will save the difference from the previous virtual machine state (configuration and disk). At this point the virtual machine finally returned to normal, thrilling.

Merge the differencing disks of SCVMM virtual machines and remove checkpoints (shapshots) that are difficult to remove