How to move from vmware ESXi 5.5 to Hyper-V 2012 R2 on same hardware?

Question

I have Vmware ESXi 5.5 Update 1 with two disks, called RAID0 (3.6 TB) and RAID5 (10.9 TB).
I am tired of having to rebuild ESXi every sixty days for home use so I am planning on moving to Hyper-V, but I'm a little nervous. I don't have swing kit, so will have to repurpose my existing 1 year old quite powerful machine (Intel i7 32 Gb RAM two sets
of RAID storage internal), 3 NICs. Features I need from VMware are:
Ability to snapshot and revert to snapshot (running and stopped VM)
Ability to move VMs between my different storage areas (RAID0 and RAID5)
Ability to set up internal networks to the Hyper-V host so I can set up virtual labs on their own virtual networks
USB pass through to the VM
Auto start VMs with the host.
Auto shut down VMs with the host.
Templating of OSs - mainly Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2, but also Centos 7. Can I convert my ESXi templates to Hyper-V?
Good performance from both Windows and Linux machines
Easy management from a workstation on the network.
Install Hyper-V to USB flash drive plugged in to the server.
Can Hyper-V do all that?
Also, I have a migration plan. Will this work?
In ESXi move all machines for migration from RAID5 to RAID0 storage.
Install Hyper-V on the host to USB flash drive (16 GB)
Format RAID5 storage so it can take vhds. (NTFS?)
Set up networks - have three NICs on the host.
Install management software on my workstation
Convert VMware vmx machines on RAID0 storage to vhd based machines on RAID5 storage. How to do this? My machines vary from v8,9 to vmx10.
Power on VMs and perform checks.
Any comments? I'm particularly concerned about the conversion process from VMware to Hyper-V and the reliability of it. Total size of VMs to convert is just under 3 TB.

Answer 1

Hi Mark. The short answer is yes to all. The more detailed answer is:
Make sure you're installing Windows 2012 R2 on the bare metal. All the following refers to 2012 R2. 
I recommend you take some time and go through the
Hyper-V Best Practices Guide
Ability to snapshot and revert to snapshot (running and stopped VM) => yes, standard feature. Keep in mind this is meant to be a short term measure, not something you keep around for long time.
Ability to move VMs between my different storage areas (RAID0 and RAID5) => yes, storage migration is a standard feature that allows you to migrate a VM storage while the VM is running. 
Ability to set up internal networks to the Hyper-V host so I can set up virtual labs on their own virtual networks => yes. An external vSwitch is one that's attached to a physical NIC. I recommend you review Hyper-V networking. It's a bit different than
VMWare. 
USB pass through to the VM => not exactly. Some work around options exist, including sharing the USB drive on the host.
Auto start VMs with the host => yes, standard VM setting. You get to choose per VM whether to always start, start if it was already running, never start, or start with a given delay.
Auto shut down VMs with the host => yes (like save state) - defined in each VM setting
Templating of OSs - mainly Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2, but also Centos 7. Can I convert my ESXi templates to Hyper-V => yes, native in VMM, plenty of Powershell examples available online. Manual steps in Hyper-V Manager to re-use a
sys-prepped OS image is also available. 
Good performance from both Windows and Linux machines => yes, depends mostly on hardware
Easy management from a workstation on the network => yes, from a Win 8.1 workstation, install RSAT
Install Hyper-V to USB flash drive plugged in to the server => yes. 16 GB is a bit small. I recommend a pair of mirrored 128GB SATA SSDs - should be inexpensive.
In ESXi move all machines for migration from RAID5 to RAID0 storage => All you need for migration is the VMDK files for each VM. VM should be offline.
Install Hyper-V on the host to USB flash drive (16 GB) => see recommendation about a pair of boot SSDs above.
Format RAID5 storage so it can take vhds. (NTFS?) => yes, NTFS, 64KB allocation unit
Set up networks - have three NICs on the host => in a single host environment / lab, you'll use 1 NIC on a single external vSwitch I guess. Or you can NIC team them then attach vSwitch to team.
Install management software on my workstation => RSAT on Win 8.1
Convert VMware vmx machines on RAID0 storage to vhd based machines on RAID5 storage. How to do this? My machines vary from v8,9 to vmx10. => try
MVMC 3
Power on VMs and perform checks. => no comment :)
Did I mention the
Hyper-V Best Practice Guide?
Sam Boutros, Senior Consultant, Software Logic, KOP, PA http://superwidgets.wordpress.com (Please take a moment to Vote as Helpful and/or Mark as Answer, where applicable) _________________________________________________________________________________
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