title: Ideas on how to save space with Windows 2008 R2 server on Hyper-V?
body: <p>I've got this question awhile ago, but it still bothers me. </p>
  
  <p>I work with a few virtual machines running Windows 2008 server, mostly demo VMs and test machines. Since most devs use them, I prefer to not have individual setups here and there and maintain a catalog of exported VMs and hard drive images instead.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks to side-by-side assemblies and windows updates each server carries an overhead of about 6 - 12 Gigs in side-by-side folder (winsxs) and windows update.</p>
  
  <p>Suppose I have 50 exported VMs (with their images), each has about 3 Gigs of payload data (OS, programs, data) and about 12 Gigs of shared overhead, which is mostly the same for all these VMs. Then I waste 2/3 of my storage space (about 600 Gigs total), not to mention network overhead of pushing this redundant data around the network when a dev wants to download a new VM snapshot.</p>
  
  <p>So I am thinking of a way of consolidating the winsxs folder accross multiple VMS. Ideally, I'd like to come up with some shared drive or something. I am even willing to designate a physical device for this. </p>
  
  <p>I realize that Windows server has minimum requirements and these files cannot be deleted (<a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/9411dbaa-69ac-43a1-8915-749670cec8c3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/9411dbaa-69ac-43a1-8915-749670cec8c3</a>).</p>
  
  <p>I also found a post on <a href="http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1391-Moving-the-WinSXS-directory-and-the-SoftwareDistribution-used-by-Windows-Update-folder-out-of-the-Windows-directory.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">moving winsxs folder</a>, but it does not appear as a reliable solution.</p>
  
  <p>Does this sound even remotely feasible? What are the best practices for consolidating resources across VMs?</p>
  
  <p>Thank you almighty stackoverflow gurus for your prompt attention ;-) </p>