Parallels and Time Machine

rayward · May 12, 2008

I'm presuming that my Windows files are backed up by Time Machine when it backs up the rest of my system (it spent quite a while chewing on a back-up after I'd migrated my PC over to the Mac). What I don't know is if I will have the same Time Machine functionality for Windows files, i.e. if I delete files from my Windows set up, can I go back and retrieve them under Time Machine?

Thanks in advance.

DarkHeraldMage · May 12, 2008

It won't individually save the files in the same way as on the Mac side, but it will consistently back up the Parallels image, so you're going to lose a TON of space on your TM drive every time you run Parallels and TM sees that there was a change. I personally excluded the Parallels image from TM backups, and just occasionally copy that image over onto the external itself. Otherwise you'll run out of space real fast.

rayward · May 12, 2008

newappleboy said:
It won't individually save the files in the same way as on the Mac side, but it will consistently back up the Parallels image, so you're going to lose a TON of space on your TM drive every time you run Parallels and TM sees that there was a change. I personally excluded the Parallels image from TM backups, and just occasionally copy that image over onto the external itself. Otherwise you'll run out of space real fast.

So, it sees the whole image as a single "entity" and makes a new backup of the whole thing every time I change one piece? Yikes!

Would appreciate advice as to how you exclude the image from the backup. I have my old PC still so that's a backup in itself, and once I've moved all my media over to the Mac environment, I'm going to skinny down the PC image to just what I need to run Quicken (which is the only reason I'll need it going forward).

yellow · May 12, 2008

rayward said:
So, it sees the whole image as a single "entity" and makes a new backup of the whole thing every time I change one piece? Yikes!

Yes and yes. That is the problem.

DarkHeraldMage · May 12, 2008

rayward said:
So, it sees the whole image as a single "entity" and makes a new backup of the whole thing every time I change one piece? Yikes!

Would appreciate advice as to how you exclude the image from the backup. I have my old PC still so that's a backup in itself, and once I've moved all my media over to the Mac environment, I'm going to skinny down the PC image to just what I need to run Quicken (which is the only reason I'll need it going forward).

Go into Time Machine's preferences and you'll have the ability to add folders to the "exclusion" policies. This just means those folders won't be looked at for updates when Time Machine does it's backups. I'm not on my mac now, so I can't tell you the exact verbage. Plus, I believe you have the ability to choose where your Parallels image is stored, so you'll have to find that images first and exclude its folder. I'll be home in an hour or so, so let me know if you have problems and I can walk you through it more detailed then.

rayward · May 12, 2008

newappleboy said:
Go into Time Machine's preferences and you'll have the ability to add folders to the "exclusion" policies. This just means those folders won't be looked at for updates when Time Machine does it's backups. I'm not on my mac now, so I can't tell you the exact verbage. Plus, I believe you have the ability to choose where your Parallels image is stored, so you'll have to find that images first and exclude its folder. I'll be home in an hour or so, so let me know if you have problems and I can walk you through it more detailed then.

Appreciate the help. I'll have a dig around later this evening, and post here if I get lost. If you don't hear from me, that means I've really, really screwed things up!

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Parallels and Time Machine

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