In general, when using Hyper-V with an HNAS server:
- Store the Hyper-V virtual machine configuration locally on the Hyper-V server or server cluster. Do not store the Hyper-V virtual machine configuration on an HNAS CIFS/SMB3 share. Virtual hard disks (VHD and VHDX) can be stored on HNAS CIFS/SMB3 shares.
Note: Ensure that the virtual machine configuration remains consistent with the virtual hard disks. If an HNAS file system is reverted to an earlier snapshot, the Hyper-V virtual machine should be reverted to the most recent checkpoint in that snapshot, and the newer checkpoints deleted.
- Always make sure that the Hyper-V server is backed up.
- Enable SMB3 when using Hyper-V virtual machines with their virtual disks stored on SMB3 shares. Using SMB3 provides performance benefits and an improved experience. To set the protocol version, use the cifs-max-supported-version command.
- Enable Continuous Availability on SMB3 shares to ensure service continuity if an HNAS failover occurs.
- Do not scan virtual hard disk files for viruses. It is unlikely that a scan will detect any viruses on the virtual hard disks and it will impact virtual machine performance. Add VHD and VHDX extensions to the virus scanner exclusion list if required. For antivirus protection, run an antivirus product inside the virtual machine.
- Avoid using large fixed-sized virtual hard disks on SMB3 shares. Large fixed-sized disks can take a long time to create, so use smaller fixed-sized virtual disks or dynamically expanding virtual disks if large disk sizes are required.
Note: An HNAS server meets all requirements of Microsoft Scale-Out File Server (SOFS). Implementing a scale-out file server backed by an HNAS SMB3 share (using virtual machines with a shared virtual hard disk stored on an HNAS SMB3 share) is not supported. HNAS SMB3 shares are already equivalent to those provided by SOFS.