Server 2012 SMB3 for redirecting files or VHD

Question

Hello,
I’m new to Server 2012 and my question is, should I use Server 2012 SMB3 shares for redirecting files and folders or should I create a virtual HD, put the VHD in the shared folder and do file and folder redirection to the VHD? Is there a preference to use
shares folder or VHD in a shared folder on ? I’m obtaining my information from, Deploy Hyper-V over SMB
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134187.aspx#BKMK_Step4 under Step 3.
Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks, Rick

Answer 1

Hello,
I’m new to Server 2012 and my question is, should I use Server 2012 SMB3 shares for redirecting files and folders or should I create a virtual HD, put the VHD in the shared folder and do file and folder redirection to the VHD? Is there a preference to use
shares folder or VHD in a shared folder on ? I’m obtaining my information from, Deploy Hyper-V over SMB
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134187.aspx#BKMK_Step4 under Step 3.
Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks, Rick
It's not clear what you want to do really. If you want to run VMs on the same machine then hosting them in a loopback on SMB 3.0 folder is not supported configuration. See:
Deploy Hyper-V over SMB
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134187.aspx
"Loopback configurations (where the computer that is running Hyper-V is used as the file server for virtual
machine storage) are not supported."
Avoid
loopback configurations for Hyper-V over SMB
http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/11/14/windows-server-2012-file-server-tip-avoid-loopback-configurations-for-hyper-v-over-smb.aspx
If hypervisor and actual file server are different hosts then you'll be fine.
If you want to run VMs locally on the same host then again using "nested" VHD(x) is by far the best idea.
Did it put a bit more light on the issue? :)
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.