Move/copy classic VM data disk to new ARM VM

Question

I see a lot of information on migrating a classic VM to ARM VM. Because the classic VM is very old, I'd rather not just convert it, but create a nice clean new ARM VM for my database server. The new ARM will be availability group and best practices that wasn't used when the classic VM was created. But I do need to get the databases moved to the new ARM VM.

I thought I'd create a new disk on the classic VM, backup the databases, detach it, convert to managed disk and attach to the new ARM VM.
I can have the database server down over the period of a weekend to make the move, but I'd rather not spend hours upon hours backing up to an AzureVault then turn around and restore them to the new server. We're having to move close to 150 databases for this migration.

So far I've not been able to find any clear information on migrating just the disk. I'm sure with so many people needing to migrate from classic to ARM getting data from one to the other is a common item.

Any suggestions/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Maybe this is helpful:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/create-vm-specialized-portal#copy-a-disk

It's a description how to create a managed disk from a snapshot of another disk. This way you keep the original disk as a fallback.

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 2

Was there ever a good answer to this problem?