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What Hyper-V minimum-bandwidth QoS does
Minimum bandwidth is a congestion-management allocation, not a cap and not an unconditional throughput guarantee. When traffic competes for a constrained link, Hyper-V uses the configured minimums to allocate available bandwidth. The allocation can be expressed as relative weights or as absolute bits per second. Set the mode on the switch and use the corresponding setting on its VM network adapters.
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Microsoft’s guidance is to “Configure Minimum Bandwidth by weight rather than BPS.” The recommendation reflects the greater flexibility of proportional allocation when capacity changes, including during migration or a NIC failure. See Microsoft’s Hyper-V network QoS best practices for the full guidance. That page lists applicability to Windows Server 2025, 2022, 2019, and 2016; Windows 11; Windows 10; and Azure Local 2311.2 and later. Check current documentation for newer releases and your specific host configuration.
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Choose weight or absolute bandwidth
| Mode | What the adapter setting means | Planning and migration | Granularity and failure behavior |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | A relative priority among adapters connected to the same virtual switch; it is not a fixed Mbps rate. | Typically easier to plan when link capacity may change. Microsoft recommends this mode for most deployments. | Microsoft documents weight values from 1 to 100 for allocation; a value of 0 disables the feature. Allocation can shift proportionally with available capacity. |
| Absolute | A minimum rate in bits per second. | Can be easier to understand when a specific minimum rate is required, but fixed allocations can complicate Live Migration or exceed capacity after a link failure. | Microsoft documents a minimum unit of 1% of link capacity, rounded to percentage points. On a 10 GbE NIC, the documented minimum allocatable rate per virtual adapter is 100 Mbps; a requested 234 Mbps rounds down to 200 Mbps. These are Microsoft’s documented examples, not independent benchmarks. |
For weight mode, Microsoft advises keeping the sum of weights near or below 100 to limit rounding or quantization error. Give more critical workloads larger weights, and leave meaningful gaps between service tiers. Its example uses 5 for Gold, 3 for Silver, and 1 for Bronze. The numbers establish relative priority; they do not mean 5%, 3%, and 1% in every circumstance.
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Set the switch mode and adapter allocations
Microsoft documents the switch modes as Weight, Absolute, None, and Default. Choose the mode when creating the switch. The examples below use an external switch named ProdSwitch; substitute your actual switch name and adapter names.
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In an elevated PowerShell session, create a switch in weight mode:
New-VMSwitch -Name "ProdSwitch" -NetAdapterName "Ethernet" -MinimumBandwidthMode WeightFor absolute allocation, use
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Assign a weight to a VM’s virtual network adapter. For example, to give
VM-Golda weight of 5:Set-VMNetworkAdapter -VMName "VM-Gold" -MinimumBandwidthWeight 5Apply suitable weights to the other VM adapters connected to this switch. The weight setting is in the range 0 through 100; zero disables minimum-bandwidth allocation for that adapter.
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For an absolute minimum, use the bits-per-second parameter instead. This example requests 500 Mbps:
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Set-VMNetworkAdapter -VMName "VM-Gold" -MinimumBandwidthAbsolute 500000000Do not set the weight and absolute parameters as if they were interchangeable: the adapter setting must match the switch’s mode. Microsoft’s reference recommends an absolute value larger than 100 Mbps. See Set-VMNetworkAdapter for parameter details.
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Account for traffic without an explicit allocation
Adapters without an explicit minimum allocation are categorized as default flow; they are not necessarily outside the switch’s allocation model. Configure the switch’s default-flow minimum using the parameter that matches its mode:
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Weight mode:
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Absolute mode:
Set-VMSwitch -Name "ProdSwitch" -DefaultFlowMinimumBandwidthAbsolute 100000000
Microsoft documents a weight-mode default of 1 and an absolute-mode default of 10% of the physical adapter’s bandwidth. The absolute example above explicitly sets 100 Mbps; select a value appropriate to the link and workloads. If workload-specific filters classify only some traffic, include a catch-all allocation so unclassified flows are accounted for. See the Set-VMSwitch PowerShell reference.
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NIC Teaming can make observed shares uneven
With NIC Teaming, QoS partitions flows before the team hashes them onto member links. Under switch-port hashing, a VM’s single vNIC can be one flow, so high-weight VMs may land on one team member while lower-weight VMs land on another. Address hashing can create more granular flows; the effect is also less pronounced when many VMs share the switch. Consider the team algorithm and topology when checking actual bandwidth rather than assuming the aggregate team capacity is shared evenly.
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Absolute allocations need failure headroom
Size absolute allocations against the capacity that remains in the failure scenario you need to support. Microsoft cautions that a two-member 1 Gb team cannot safely maintain an absolute VM allocation above 1 Gb after one member fails. A weight allocation can redistribute proportionally across remaining capacity, though the resulting throughput still depends on what capacity is available.
Do not combine Hyper-V minimum bandwidth and DCB on the same stack or NIC
Hyper-V minimum bandwidth is enforced by the Windows QoS Packet Scheduler; Data Center Bridging (DCB) is enforced by capable NIC hardware. Microsoft advises against enabling both for workloads using the same networking stack or NIC. Separate stacks or separate NICs can be configured independently.
Distinguish a minimum from a maximum
A maximum-bandwidth setting caps how much bandwidth an adapter may consume; it does not reserve capacity. Use the minimum setting when the goal is allocation during congestion. The Set-VMNetworkAdapter reference documents the adapter bandwidth parameters.
Use cluster examples as examples, not universal values
Microsoft’s Hyper-V cluster recommendations include a management vNIC configured with -MinimumBandwidthWeight 10 in a converged-network example. That value illustrates one configuration; it is not a universal setting for management traffic. Choose weights based on the workloads sharing your switch and the relative service priority you intend to express. See Microsoft’s Hyper-V cluster recommendations.
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