Support for VHD files?

Thona · Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:36 pm

I know you have your own image files.

But given that support for VHD files is now not only part of virtual server / hyper-v but core function of the operating system (R2, Win7) which supports mounting and unmounting them DIRECTLY from the file manager, the missing support for VHD files starts itching a little, or?

I have some scenarios where I Would love to mound differential VHD files - basically to boot workstations from a central base image. In other scenarios I do not care (basically: Hyper-V, where I will use a clustered shared storage for the cluster).... but support for VHD files would definitely be nice.

Robert (staff) · Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:24 am

Thona,

At this point it is not possible to mount the vhd files directly to StarWind, however, you can use our free Convertor http://www.starwindsoftware.com/converter to convert them to .img files and edit them.

Thanks

Thona · Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:44 am

Any planned date for VHD? After HA I think that is the most disturbing missing item, simply because VHD Is not not "something for virtualization" but "something used by windows".

Robert (staff) · Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:03 am

I don't think an option to mount VHD directly will appear in StarWind in the nearest future.

Thanks

Aitor_Ibarra · Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:37 pm

I haven't tried Starwind on top of Windows 2008 R2 yet, but how about mounting the VHD in Windows and then using Starwind to present it as a diskbridge device? Sorry if someone's already explained why that won't work...

Alternatively, run Starwind inside a VM and then use diskbridge from there?

Neither option is as elegant as simply being able to mount a VHD from within Starwind, but better than conversion...

Thona · Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:14 am

Well, thank heaven with Clustered Shared VOlumes the need to mount VHD files is a lot less than before... It makes not a lot of sense in most cases to mount VHD files fr virtual machines now.... it is a lot better to mount just one large volume for each cluster... It still sounds astonishing that you get an answer like "Not planned, not coming" for something that obviously a big freaking gap in the feature set.

Robert (staff) · Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:36 am

Thona,

What I meant was that this feature may not appear in StarWind shortly, but it is not the final decision on the far future prospective.

Our product roadmap may change and it is quite possible that StarWind will have this functionality probably not in version 5, but one of the next releases.

I would like to thank you for the idea and we will definately consider this as one of the features when working on the next version.

Thanks.