You work as a senior administrator at Contoso.com. The Contoso.com network consists of a single domain
named Contoso.com. All servers on the Contoso.com network have Windows Server 2012 R2 installed.
You are running a training exercise for junior administrators. You are currently discussing the new VHD format
called VHDX.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to VHDX? (Choose all that apply.)
A.
It supports virtual hard disk storage capacity of up to 64 GB.
B.
It supports virtual hard disk storage capacity of up to 64 TB.
C.
It does not provide protection against data corruption during power failures.
D.
It has the ability to store custom metadata about the file that the user might want to record.
Explanation:
The main new features of the VHDX format are:
Support for virtual hard disk storage capacity of up to 64 TB.
Protection against data corruption during power failures by logging updates to the VHDX metadata structures.
Improved alignment of the virtual hard disk format to work well on large sector disks.
The VHDX format also provides the following features:
Larger block sizes for dynamic and differencing disks, which allows these disks to attune to the needs of the
workload.
A 4-KB logical sector virtual disk that allows for increased performance when used by applications and
workloads that are designed for 4-KB sectors.
The ability to store custom metadata about the file that the user might want to record, such as operating system
version or patches applied.
Efficiency in representing data (also known as “trim”), which results in smaller file size and allows the underlying
physical storage device to reclaim unused space. (Trim requires physical disks directly attached to a virtual
machine or SCSI disks, and trim-compatible hardware).VHDX Format – Features and Benefits VHDX format features provide features at the virtual hard disk as well
as virtual hard disk file layers and is optimized to work well with modern storage hardware configurations and
capabilities. At the virtual hard disk layer, benefits include the ability to represent a large virtual disk size up to
64 TB, support larger logical sector sizes for a virtual disk up to 4 KB that facilitates the conversion of 4 KB
sector physical disks to virtual disks, and support large block sizes for a virtual disk up to 256 MB that enables
tuning block size to match the IO patterns of the application or system for optimal performance. At the virtual
hard disk file layer, the benefits include the use of a log to ensure resiliency of the VHDX file to corruptions from
system power failure events and a mechanism that allows for small pieces of user generated data to be
transported along with the VHDX file. On modern storage platforms, the benefits include optimal performance
on host disks that have physical sector sizes larger than 512 bytes through improved data alignment and
capability to use the information from the UNMAP command, sent by the application or system using the virtual
hard disk, to optimize the size of the VHDX file. The format is designed so that additional features could be
introduced in the future by Microsoft or extended by other parser implementations. The format provides parsers
the ability to detect features in a VHDX file that a parser does not understand.