How to backup properly?

[subzero]

I just started using Parallels Desktop (installed on a separate partition). I have a Windows network drive which I would like to backup to.

Preferably, I would have two backup sets:
1) Daily incremental backup of just specific folders on the Windows drive (NTFS). Parallels might not be started and hence the drive is not necessarily mounted.

2) Weekly full backup (image) that I can restore later. I believe WinClone can do this, although it does not seem to be possible to schedule this task?

Any clues welcome

 

[balamw]

Just curious: Why you are using a physical partition instead of a Virtual Disk Image as this would give you marginally better performance and give you the image/snapshots for "free."

For the first task, I would suggest Chronosync. http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html

For the second, I'd switch it over to a virtual drive.

B

 

[subzero]

I had the idea that using a physical partition would give me better performance, and yield less disk read/write operations.

I will be moving to a SSD soon, so the fewer write operations the better.

 

[balamw]

I had the idea that using a physical partition would give me better performance, and yield less disk read/write operations.

I will be moving to a SSD soon, so the fewer write operations the better.

All evidence points to the contrary. The performance advantage goes to the virtual disk. (Think of it as the native "hardware" for the VM, accessing the physical disk requires another layer of virtualization.)

e.g. http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=92835

Performance off the Parallels regular disk is considered slightly faster.
Also, there is a number of limitations for a Parallels virtual machine that uses the Boot Camp Windows partition either as a bootable volume or as a data disk:

* it cannot be suspended or paused
* such a virtual machine cannot have snapshots and the Safe Mode feature cannot be enabled for it
* compression or compacting cannot be performed
(you can see this in overview).

Using virtual machine based on a Boot camp partition, on the other hand, has the advantage that you can boot to Windows natively whenever you would need it.

B