Configuring VM Storage in Hyper-V

The Default location for storing Hyper-V Virtual Machine files is:

.vhd: C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Hyper-V\virtual hard disks

Configuration files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V

It is OK to leave them there in a test environment, but in practice, you will want to move them to different physical drives simply for the sake of better performance. Here are a few considerations.

Move them off the partition that holds the host’s operating system
Move them off the disk that is used by the parent for paging.
If using multiple VMs on the same server, distribute the VM files across as many disks as possible.
If stored on a SAN, ensure reliability and performance will meet expectations.
Make sure the location will not only have enough space for data, but also snapshots.
Restrict access to the storage locations to only those who need to copy and paste files in that location.
If on a failover cluster, store the files on the shared disk.

To change the default location of the stored files, open Hyper-V Manager:

Click Hyper-V Settings in the Actions pane.

The first two columns on the left are the default storage locations. Changing these will change the storage location of all future VM files.

You can also specify the location of the data files when you create a new VM.

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