How do I add storage to a running Hyper-V guest without downtime?

Hot Add Storage was added to Hyper-V at version 2008 R2.

• From the Hyper-V Manager Right-click the machine you want to add storage to, select Settings. This will bring up the settings window.

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• Click On SCSI Controller in the left pane. If you do not have a SCSI Controller, you will have to turn the machine off to add one. You can only Hot Add storage to a machine using the SCSI bus.
• Then click Hard Drive and then Add

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• now click Newto launch the add Wizard
• on Before you Begin click Next
• Chose your disk type (I am using Dynamically expanding) then click Next
• Give your VHD a file name (I use a naming convention for all drives; mine is called “E-Data Atlanta.vhd” E will be the drive letter, “–Data” says it is for data and “Atlanta” is the server name.
• Chose the location to store the VHD. I like to put VHDs in the folder with the “Virtual Machines” folder for the VM. So in my case I am putting it in “F:Hyper-VBRS Atlanta {SCVMM}” As you can see, I have a naming convention for the machine names and folders as well. My naming convention is… VM’s that are running on Hyper-V are in a Hyper-V folder, (as apposed to the Boot2VHD folder). My machine name convention is: “BRS” is the template I used to create it “Atlanta” is the computer name “{SCVMM}” I put the primary services or applications that run on the machine in braces. I often also put a period “.” and the last octet of the machine IP Address after the brace but in this case I did not. Then click Next
• Give your drive a size (I am taking the default of 127gb) click Next
• Then click Finish

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• Then Click OK

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The Drive is now attached to the machine so all we need to do is login to the machine, bring the disk online, initialize it and create the volume.

• Login to the machine (in my case Atlanta)
• Click Start | Right-Click My Computer – Select Manage
• Expand Storage and click Disk Management

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• We now see the new disk (Disk 1)
• Right-Click on the left (grey part) of the disk and select online from the dropdown menu
• Right-Click Again and select Initialize – On the popup keep the defaults and click OK
• Right-Click (the white space of the disk this time) select New Simple Volume
• In the wizard you can just Click Next all the way through it then Finish on the last screen. You are welcome to make changes if you like, but I will keep the defaults on all except the volume label which I will change to Data

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You will now have access to this new drive in the virtual machine

If you want to see the same process using System Center Virtual Machine (SCVMM) Manager see my Video of the process at Hot Add Storage to Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Guest Using SCVMM

IT Pro, Hyper-V, Virtualization, IT Manager, Windows Server 2008 R2, How To, IT Management, VHD, GURU-Tip