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Avoid using checkpoints on a virtual machine that runs a server workload in a production environment

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Applies to: Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016

For more information about best practices and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer.

Property Details
Operating System Windows Server 2016
Product/Feature Hyper-V
Severity Warning
Category Operations

In the following sections, italics indicates UI text that appears in the Best Practices Analyzer tool for this issue.

Note

In Windows Server 2012 R2, virtual machine snapshots were renamed to virtual machine checkpoints in Hyper-V Manager to match the terminology used in System Center Virtual Machine Management. For details, see Checkpoints and Snapshots Overview.

Issue

A virtual machine with one or more checkpoints has been found.

Impact

Available space may run out on the physical disk that stores the checkpoints files. If this occurs, no additional disk operations can be performed on the physical storage. Any virtual machine that relies on the physical storage could be affected.

If physical disk space runs out, any running virtual machine that has checkpoints or virtual hard disks stored on that disk may be paused automatically. Hyper-V Manager shows the status of these virtual machines as paused-critical.

Resolution

If the virtual machine runs a server workload in a production environment, take the virtual machine offline and then use Hyper-V Manager to apply or delete the checkpoints. To delete checkpoints, you must shut down the virtual machine to complete the process.

Note

Production checkpoints are now available as an alternative to standard checkpoints. For details, see Choose between standard or production checkpoints.