Best Way to Install Virtual Box?

[thriii]

I'm going to be installing Virtual Box on my main system but I want to make sure I do the the best way possible so ill atleast be able to restore my mac if there is a problem or worst case reinstall Snow Leopard.. I have 3 HDs

HD1: Boot/Apps
HD2: Data
HD3: Time Machine

I was thinking of backing up HD1 and 2 with time machine but excluding the Virtual Box folder if possible.. would this be the best solution? Just want to ask before I install this since I've read about KP's from these type of setups with Windows Operating Systems

 

[angelwatt]

Guess it depends if you want the virtual machines backed up. I back mine up.

 

[LtRammstein]

Are you creating VirtualBox machines? If so, you're out of luck on determining the default locations. The .vdi (the virtual machine hard drives) are located in your /Users/<user>/System/Library/VirtualBox folder.

I don't know why you'd want to exclude backups of your VirtualBox drives... They do have snapshot managements incase of issues. Read more into VirtualBox and what it offers before you do anything that you might be concerned about.

 

[maflynn]

I don't know why you'd want to exclude backups of your VirtualBox drives...

Because VMs can be many gigabytes large and that could fill up your time machine backup after a couple of hours of backups.

For me, I use Time Machine, exclude my VMware files, but I then create a weekly Carbon Copy Clone of my hard drive on an external drive. I also manually copy the VMs to an another external drive daily.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Are you creating VirtualBox machines? If so, you're out of luck on determining the default locations. The .vdi (the virtual machine hard drives) are located in your /Users/<user>/System/Library/VirtualBox folder.

I don't know why you'd want to exclude backups of your VirtualBox drives... They do have snapshot managements incase of issues. Read more into VirtualBox and what it offers before you do anything that you might be concerned about.

Actually, you CAN change the location VirtualBox stores your .vdi files. You have to do it when creating the VM initially, and the VirtualBox software sure doesn't make it obvious how to do it.