Migrating fileserver VM from 2003 to 2012 R2

We're running a 2003 file server on VMWare 5.5, and will be moving to 2012 R2. This VM is a DFS (namespace only) target. It has around 50 folders which are targets in a DFS share

\\domain.local\projects\share[1..50]

So my first question is whether it is ok to use

dfsutil.exe root export \\domain.local\share c:\textfile.txt

Then search/replace the targets, changing from \\2003server to \\2012server\

Finally importing the updated list using

dfsutil.exe root import set C:\textfile.txt \\domain.local\projects

In regards to migrating the data, would it be beneficial to start with a new disk and xcopy/robocopy the data, or should I just disconnect the disk from the old 2003 VM and connect it to the new 2012 VM?

Are there any performance benefits, new features, etc. I miss by not having a "native" 2012 disk?

Thanks for any help or advice!