Will multiple .avhdx snapshots be merged into one .vhdx after shutting down a VM in Hyper-V v10.0?

Question

Virtualization

I have Hyper-V version 10.0 with the DATA virtual machine. In the folder where the hard disk image DATA.vhdx (size 47 GB) is located, .avhdx files were created (one 60 GB in size, the second, which is the last control snapshot, 326 GB). Vkurse that these are control snapshots of the VM. Obviously, they take up a lot of space and the backup time increases significantly. There are several questions about this, perhaps someone has already come across this in practice:
1. In one article I read that when the virtual machine is turned off, the .avhdx files should be merged into one .vhdx. Will this merge process somehow be displayed in the Hyper-v manager as a running progress?
2. What made the last checkpoint (which is 326GB) so "bloated"? Almost 8 times the size of .vhdx. I think that it "swollen" because of the restoration of folder backups - copied from network storage to the DATA VM.
3. After combining vhdx and avhdx, will the size remain 326 GB?
4. What other ways can I get rid of avhdx files? The fact that you can’t just delete them is in the know

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

The fact that you can’t just remove them is in the know

You can delete something, but changes will be deleted with them. Get the state of the machine for some old date.

What made the last checkpoint so "bloated"

It stores not just the current state, but all changes since a certain date. The more changes in the file system, the larger the size of this file.

What other ways can you get rid of avhdx files?

https://sky-rzn.ru/blog/interesnoe/snapshot-hyper-v/