Exporting and importing vDisks
Provisioning Services exports and imports both versioned and unversioned vDisks from an existing store to another store in a different farm.
Tip
If you are importing VHDs that were not exported using Provisioning Services, all differencing disks must first be merged to a base disk using third party tools, then the new VHD base disk can be imported.
Exporting vDisks
To export a vDisk:
- Right-click on the vDisk in the Console, then select the Export menu option. The Export dialog appears.
- Select the version to export from the drop-down menu, then click OK. The manifest file is created in the Store.
Tip
If you delete a vDisk that you plan to export, Citrix recommends that you export the vDisk first, then copy the resulting XML file to the new location before deleting it from the original location.
Importing vDisks
A vDisk or vDisk chain of differencing VHD files can be imported into a store if:
- the imported VHD does not already exist in the store and both the highest version number of the VHD and associated manifest files match, if the VHD chain includes a base image, and that base image version number matches the base image version in the manifest file.
Note
When importing a single vDisk, no manifest file is required, however, if you import vDisks with versions you must include a manifest file.
- the VHD does exist in the store but the imported version number in the associated manifest file is greater than the existing VHD version number.
To add or import an existing vDisk to a site:
- Copy the vDisk and any associated properties files to shared storage, if they do not already exist there.
- In the Console tree pane, right-click on the Store or a vDisk Pool, then select theAdd or Import Existing vDisk…menu option. The Add or Import Existing vDisks dialog appears.
- Select the store to search for vDisks from theStore to searchdrop-down menu.
- Select the server to use to search for vDisks from theServer to use for searchingdrop-down menu, then clickSearch. All vDisks in the store display in theAdd checked vDisks to the vDisk Pool.
- Check those vDisks that should be added to the vDisk pool.
- Optionally, checkEnable load balancing for these vDisksto enable load balancing on Provisioning Servers that provide this vDisk to target devices.
- ClickAddto add the vDisk(s) to the vDisk pool.
Adding vDisk versions
To add a vDisk version to a site:
- Copy the vDisk, and any associated property files, to shared storage, if they do not already exist there.
- In the Console tree pane, right-click on the Store or a vDisk Pool, then select theAdd vDisk Versionsmenu option. The Add vDisk Versions dialog appears.
- Select the store to search for vDisks from theStore to searchdrop-down menu.
- Select the server to use to search for vDisks from theServer to use for searchingdrop-down menu, then clickSearch. All vDisks in the store display in theAdd checked vDisks new versions.
- Check those vDisk versions that should be added to the vDisk pool.
- ClickAddto add the vDisk(s) to the vDisk pool.