Explanation/Reference:
Explanation:
Creating Hyper-V 3 Differencing Disks in Server 2012 with GUI and PowerShell Differencing Disks are like VMware Linked Clones, you have Parent VHD and a number of linked VHD
\VHDX for VMs that only record the changes from the Parent. A full Server 2008 R2 VHDX is around 11 GB, a sysprep'd Differencing disk is around 1 GB, meaning more machines in less space, ideal for Test and Dev. I've now got a SSD in my lab Server (which makes a huge difference in performance when running multiple VMs). I was looking into Server 2010 dedupe, but found that is only for VHDs at rest i.e.
libraries of VHD images, not live in use disks. With differencing disks, I can make much better use of my SSD.
So how do you create a VM with differencing disks? First you start with a Master or Parent disk. I have a sysprep'd Server 2008 R2 VHDX. Mark it as read only so you don't inadvertently change it. If you do all the child disk will be unusable.