Here, we are discussing the last of the basics to get you equipped to create and manage a simple Hyper-V structure. No server environment, physical or virtual, is complete without a clear consideration and consensus over the underlying storage. In the course of this chapter, you will learn about the details of virtual storage, how to differentiate one from the other, and how to convert one to the other and vice versa.

We will also see how Windows Server 2012 R2 removes dependencies on raw device mappings by way of pass-through or iSCSI LUN, which were required for guest clustering. VHDX can now be shared and delivers better results than pass-through disks. There are more merits to VHDX than the former, as it allows you to extend the size even if the virtual machine is alive.

Previously, Windows Server 2012 added a very interesting facet for storage virtualization in Hyper-V when it introduced virtual SAN, which adds a virtual host bus adapter (HBA) capability...