[mothered]

One word:
Damn
You have so much operating systems on the left bar.
Can I ask why?

Due to the nature of tasks performed on my VMs, they go down quickly (Infected etc), so by the time I locate, mount and configure the backup VHD, I continue my work on the other(s).

You'll notice that one VM Is my IDS- actively monitoring my network/traffic for potential Intrusions.

Just from reading that, I'm already hooked. Do you build a VM, then clone it?
For your IDS VM, is it running win 10 or?

Everything Is configured from scratch- security rules defined, permissions set, threat & Intelligence monitoring, voice-activated alerts (and generated via SMTP gateways) and the list goes on.

The IDS Is CentOS based.