Windows 8: Hyper-V 3.0 and new VHDX virtual hard drive format discovered

By Tom Warren, on 20th Jun 11 9:57 am with 14 Comments

The leaked Windows 8 build 7989 also contains Hyper-V 3.0 and a new virtual hard drive format, VHDX.

Both features have been uncovered by enthusiasts digging around the leaked build. Robert McLaws has detailed the support in a blog post on Monday. Windows 8 build 7989 includes the following Hyper-V 3.0 features:

  • Storage
    • Virtual Fibre Channel Adapter
    • Storage Resource Pools
    • New .VHDX virtual hard drive format (Up to 16TB + power failure resiliency)
  • Memory/Processor Enhancements
    • Support for more than 4 cores! (My machine has 12 cores)
    • NUMA – Memory per Node, Cores per Node, Nodes per Processor Socket
  • Networking Enhancements
    • Hardware Acceleration (Virtual Machine Queue & IPsec Offload)
    • Bandwidth Management
    • DHCP Guard
    • Router Guard
    • Monitor Port
    • Virtual Switch Extensions
    • Network Resource Pools

The new VHDX format is capable of supporting disks much larger than the current 2TB restriction of VHD. Microsoft has created VHDX which is capable of supporting disks up to 16TB in size. The new format can only be used in Windows OS versions starting at Windows 8. The introduction of Hyper-V 3.0 could allow for self-contained App-V applications. McLaws also speculates that this may improve Windows Phone 7 emulator support.

Windows 8 - VHDX

  • Tzon1

    Oh!!! Awesome!!!

  • Tzon1

    Oh!!! Awesome!!!

  • Tzon1

    Oh!!! Awesome!!!

  • Cchance

    i really hope they dont run out of suprise killer features for windows 8, i want to see more on the cloud features and syncing features.

    • GP007

      We might find out most of the info in Sept at BUILD but even if you already know about 90% of the things that are coming you still want to get your hands on it and use it.  I can’t wait for a public beta like with Win7.

  • Guest

    NUMA is a good feature for performance.

    All this new tech is great, Alpha 3 of Haiku just released and there’s a cool feature called Stack And Tile for working with windows in a unique way. You always discover things they don’t tell you about, I’m sure there will be tons of little things that brighten your day when Windows 8 is released.

  • Guest

    Anybody know if this means your Intel processor needs to support their VT technoogy?

  • Guest

    hyper-v in the client os? please say that stays in the final release!

    • http://twitter.com/tonycubed Tony

      Could be a Ultimate feature :P

  • Neubauer Karl

    Can also add NFS support in Windows 8 build 7989 (turn windows freatures on or off).
    Did not see this in my Windows 7. Is this new?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000678662470 Vincent Haakmat

    My only question to Microsoft: When will you ditch this old stinking BIOS every PC relies on? It’s time for a new type of BIOS that was developed in 2011 instead of 1978

    • Jonathan

      Microsoft is commanding manufacterers to use UEFI instead of BIOS.

    • http://twitter.com/ondraster Ondra Moravek

      Too bad that most of the UEFI stinks. The most known reason “to boot faster” got somewhere lost between adding mouse support and making games in UEFI (thanks MSI for those awesome two games and third that doesn’t work!)

  • Trea Heapes

    What is the next Windows Server edition and any idea when there will be a release for that ? 2012 ?