Comparison: SCVMM P2V and Sysinternals Disk2VHD
Sysinterals recently released a free P2V. The comparison table below is for your reference to help highlight the difference in features and functionality between the two. The table is not meant to pin one tool against the other (i.e. who is better). The free tool is not meant to compete against VMM P2V. The free tool does however address the following gaps:
1. Support technician that needs to capture a VM from a physical machine for troubleshooting purposes (VMM is not deployed)
2. Customers that do not want deploy VMM just for P2V or pay for another product
3. End-user converting their own desktop to VMs without requiring a server admin
| Features |
VMM P2V |
Sysinternals Disk2vhd |
| Disable services offline after conversion |
Yes |
No |
| Disable drivers offline after conversion |
Yes |
No |
| Offline P2V support (uses WINPE) |
Yes |
No |
| Hardware Re-configuration (e.g. change MAC address on vNIC) |
Yes |
No |
| Automation through scripting |
Yes (POSH) |
No (Command shell) |
| Job progress and job audit |
Yes |
No (can code something in POSH for job progress) |
| Supports remote execution |
Yes |
No |
| Supports no user interaction on source |
Yes |
No |
| Enhanced placement technology to know which host to place the VM workload on |
Yes |
No |
| Carry over network configuration from source NICs (static IP) |
Yes |
No |
| Skip copy of empty space on source to improve transfer time |
Yes |
Yes |
| Uses VSS for online P2V |
Yes |
Yes |
| Supports BITS for transferring files (both online and offline) - secure, re-start |
Yes |
No |
| Support streaming of data between the source and destination |
Yes |
No |
| Support disk size expansion |
Yes |
No |
| Automatically install Integration Services |
Yes |
No |
| Support W2KSP4 |
Yes |
No |
| Support client and server OS - XP, W2K3, Vista, W2K8, Win7, W2K8 R2 |
Yes |
Yes |
| Automatic creation of VM as part of conversion |
Yes |
No |
| Free |
No |
Yes |
| Requires Management Tool (additional infrastructure) |
No |
Yes |
| End-user standalone interface |
No |
Yes |
