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Optimize Hyper-V for SC Series
21 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Hyper-V Best Practices | CML1009
Limitations when using direct-attached storage for guest VMs include:
• Checkpoints: The ability to perform native Hyper-V checkpoints is lost. However, the ability to
leverage SC Series snapshots is unaffected.
• Simplicity: More complicated and therefore requires more management overhead. This is especially
true for vFC.
• Mobility: VM Mobility is reduced due to creating a physical hardware layer dependency.
• Compatibility: SC Series Replay Manager offers limited support for virtual Fibre Channel.
• Zoning requirements: Virtual FC requires that the host servers and SC Series use soft zoning (by
WWN) instead of hard zoning (by switch port).
• Ease of management: SC Series cluster server objects are not supported with guest VM clusters
using Virtual FC adapters.
Note: Legacy environments that use direct-attached disks solely for guest VM clustering (HA) should consider
switching to shared virtual hard disks as they modernize their infrastructure.
2.9 Guest VMs and pass-through disks
A block-based pass-through disk is a special type of Hyper-V disk that is mapped to a Hyper-V host or cluster,
and then is passed through directly to a Hyper-V guest VM. The Hyper-V host or cluster has visibility to a
pass-through disk but does not have I/O access. The Hyper-V host will show the disk in a reserved state as
only the guest VM has I/O access.
Add an SC Series volume to a guest VM as a pass-through disk
Although SC Series supports pass-through disks, the use of pass-through disks is a legacy design that is
discouraged unless there is a specific use case that requires it. They are no longer necessary because of the