benefits of a VM linked to a template?

[simonjcarr]

Other than the fast creation of a new VM is there any other benefit of converting a VM to a template?

I don't think there is any way to update a template once it has been created. If I want to update the template, it would require creating a new VM, updating it and then creating a new template.

If I don't want to end up with lots of different versions of a template, then I would want to delete the old versions, but then the link to those templates from VM's created from it is gone, so again, other than the initial speed of creation, is there any benefit?

 

[dcsapak]

if you're doing linked clones, it saves some disk space too (as long as the images diverge not too much)