I have one server running several different virtual machines with Hyper-v for different clients. All of my clients have given the OK to a maintenance window over one day on a weekend in the future.
I want to preserve all of the virtual machines currently running while also rebuilding the server to use Arch Linux and KVM for virtualization. Some of the guest operating systems are Windows Server 2008, 2003, 2008, and 2012 as well as Debian Linux.
As of now, the virtual hard drives are all on the same RAID 1+0 and I have spare hard drives to make an identical RAID configuration.
I was thinking that in case nothing works in the end, I could at least just boot from the old hard drives. So in order to do that, I would set up the current drives in a disk array and attach it as a secondary to the system. The new blank hard drives would go into the server as the primary and would install and configure the OS and finally convert the VHD/VHDX files over and it should be fine.
Can anyone speak to this process, perhaps suggesting alternatives, or offer any advice on why this would or would not be an OK idea?