Microsoft support policy for Hyper-V environments utilizing Network Attached Storage

Applies to: Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2Windows Server 2008 DatacenterWindows Server 2008 Enterprise More

Summary

This article describes Microsoft support for using a file-sharing protocol together with Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008, in Windows Server 2008 R2, and in Windows Server "8" Beta. File-sharing protocols include the following:
  • Server Message Block (SMB)
  • Common Internet File System (CIFS)
  • Network File System (NFS)
An example configuration is the configuration that you would create by following these steps:
  1. Create an SMB share.
  2. Create a new VM on that share.
The support matrix for each protocol is displayed in the following table.

Operating systemSMBCIFSNFS
Windows Server 2008 (all editions)NoNoNo
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008NoNoNo
Windows Server 2008 R2 (all editions)NoNoNo
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2NoNoNo
Windows Server "8" Beta Yes*NoNo
*SMB 2.2 required

More Information

On operating systems that do not support network attached storage, an operation such as exporting a VM will fail with an error that resembles the following:
In this scenario, during the export process from a remote computer, the remote computer impersonates the calling user for some part of the export. This occurs in the context of the "Anonymous" account on the third computer wherein constrained delegation is not enabled. This makes sure that the calling user has the necessary permissions to affect the destination storage location.

For more information about planning storage for Windows Server 2008 and for Windows Server 2008 R2, visit the following Microsoft TechNet website: 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd183729.aspx

For more information about new functionality in Windows Server “8” Beta, visit the following TechNet website:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831410.aspx#BKMK_SMB