How do you download a virtual machine from Azure

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Posted on by Rudi Hansen

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I would like to download my D365FO Development box from Azure, but it the only way really to download the disk files, since that seems like a lot of data to have to download.

I have looked at the disks that are in my Development box, C,D,E,F and so on, and the total amount of data is just about 206 Gb.
But when I look at the disks it seems I have to download from Azure (buildDisk,dataDisk0,dataDisk1,dataDisk2 and osdisk) they are a total of 2235 Gb.

By the way I am using the Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer to look at the disks.

So if I use the Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer to download these disks, do i really have to download more that 2Tb of files, or does it compress the files during download or something.

Or does someone perhaps have a better way to do this?

And yes I know I could download the VHD from Lifecycle Services, but that is not what I want to do. (And by the way why is that machine only a total of 150Gb what is the last 60Gb on the Azure one?? Just wondering)

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André Arnaud de Cal... 300,911 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi Rudi,

Can you tell what would be the purpose to download the VHDs from the virtual machine? If you want to run this locally, this will not work. The downloadable VHD has some emulators to simulate some Azure features, like the storage account.

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Rudi Hansen 4,075 on at

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Are you quite sure that it will not work?

I was quite convinced that I heard that it works but something might not work, especially some of the things that require Azure services.
But I seems strange that nothing will work at all.

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A.Prasanna 8,223 on at

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Follow Steps in: docs.microsoft.com/.../download-vhd

for your case Don't use Generalize Option.

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Rudi Hansen 4,075 on at

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[quote user="Amith Prasanna"]
Follow Steps in: docs.microsoft.com/.../download-vhd

for your case Don't use Generalize Option.
[/quote]
Its just a link to the normal Microsoft documentation that mentions nothing about how to reduce the size of amount of data you need to download.

So I am not sure what you are trying to say, did you post the correct link, or am I missing something?

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MYGz 2,162 on at

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But what are you trying to do after you copy those disks locally?

Are you trying to run the same instance of OS in those disks on your hardware/Hyper-V?

If that's the case, that cannot happen as the underlying hardware and all the drivers, etc installed on the Azure instance will be completely different to your hardware. And in case of VM it will be completely different to how Hyper-V does things.

IMO, What you can do at best is copy the SQL database and code and restore on local VHD.

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Rudi Hansen 4,075 on at

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[quote user="MYGz"]
But what are you trying to do after you copy those disks locally?

Are you trying to run the same instance of OS in those disks on your hardware/Hyper-V?

If that's the case, that cannot happen as the underlying hardware and all the drivers, etc installed on the Azure instance will be completely different to your hardware. And in case of VM it will be completely different to how Hyper-V does things.

IMO, What you can do at best is copy the SQL database and code and restore on local VHD.
[/quote]
No that would absolutely work, that one of the points about virtualizing, that you can move a machine to completely different hardware, and it will still run.

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MYGz 2,162 on at

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Interesting. Would read on it.

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A.Prasanna 8,223 on at

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Sorry, I missed one part of your question,

you can use the Shrink option to reduce managed disk size up to some limit .refer to the below post it may help.

jrudlin.github.io/.../.

Or Else try to use Disk2vhd and then convert your Azure VM to Copy and split into pieces (using software like HjSplit then download (I've used this option to Local Server, not in Azure VM's)

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Rudi Hansen 4,075 on at

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[quote user="Amith Prasanna"]
you can use the Shrink option to reduce managed disk size up to some limit .refer to the below post it may help.

Or Else try to use Disk2vhd and then convert your Azure VM to Copy and split into pieces (using software like HjSplit then download (I've used this option to Local Server, not in Azure VM's)
[/quote]
Thanks I will have a look at that post about Shrinking the disks.

I have used a tool called Macrium Reflect to image the disks, and then WinRar to split the images into pieces to make them easier to download.

I seems to have worked I do at least now have the machine running locally, and will be testing the next few days if everything works.

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