• Improve performance with a physical HDD
• Replicate virtual machines (securely)

5. Enable replication manually on a reimported virtual machine

5.1. Export and reimport a virtual machine

To export a virtual machine from Hyper-V, refer to our previous tutorial : Export and import virtual machines in Hyper-V

In our case, we exported our "Win 7 x64" virtual machine to an external hard drive.

For now, we will simply import this virtual machine to our 2nd Hyper-V server.
To do this, select your 2nd Hyper-V server and click : Import Virtual Machine.

Then, click Browse and select the folder of your virtual machine (on your external hard drive).

Then, select "Restore the virtual machine (use the existing unique ID)" to import the virtual machine into the default folders of your Hyper-V server.

Wait while importing the virtual machine, as well as vhdx files (virtual hard disks attached to this virtual machine).

For the moment, we have a copy on our 2nd server which has the same ID as this one on our primary server.
Nevertheless, for the moment, it's simply a copy and it will not be updated from the primary server.

5.2. Use copy as initial copy for replication

In order for Hyper-V to synchronize the copy (present on the 2nd server) from our primary server, we will enable the replication of our virtual machine on our primary server.

Select your 2nd Hyper-V server.

Choose the virtual hard disks to replicate (as before).

This time, select the "Use an existing virtual machine on the Replica server as the initial copy" option.

Note : the Hyper-V server will automatically detect the copy on your replica server thanks to the identifier that was kept during the export / import.

Click Finish.

Hyper-V will send the initial replica over the network.

And the replica server will receive the changes.

Once the original virtual machine and copy are synchronized, the replication state will become : enabled.