Will Time Machine backup/Parrellels Desktop/Windows side

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tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Will Time Machine backup/Parrellels Desktop/Windows side

I'm thinking of moving to an iMac for my next computer, probably in the next 6 months or so, but I have a some questions I wondered if you might be able to help me with.

I'm wanting to use Time Machine as its basically going to do its job with no input from me (once I've switched it on and selected the drive to use for backups). I'm planning on getting Parrallels Desktop and installing Windows. Now I know Time Machine takes backups every hour. But I was wondering if it will also backup not only the Mac side but the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side) too.

For example, if I install a program on the Mac side, edit a file, delete a file etc, Time Machine will backup the changes on its next backup. If I done the same while running Windows, i.e install a program on the Windows side, edit a file, delete a file etc, does Time Machine backup these changes for the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side) too?

Basically in a worst case scenario if my iMac had got messed up and would not boot up.How do I go about getting not only the Mac side restored to an earlier and working state, but the Windows side too. It's just I know that at some point in time I would need to do this has I've needed to do it in Windows several times in the last 5 years with Acronis True Image.

Thanks in advance.

Windows Vista, iPad (3rd Gen) 32GB iPhone 4S 32GB

Posted on Sep 1, 2012 3:33 PM

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Answer 1

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 1, 2012 3:34 PM in response to tal1971

Also, is it possible to independently restore either the Parrellels Desktop/Windows side, or the Mac side.

For example. If I had a problem on just the Windows side (Parrellels Desktop side) but the Mac side was absolutely fine. Could I use Time Machine to just restore the Windows side (Parrellels Desktop side) and leave the Mac side untouched?

Thanks again.

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Answer 2

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 1, 2012 3:43 PM in response to tal1971

I forgot to mention that I am considering getting an iMac with a 1TB drive. I presume that when I installed Parrellels Desktop and Windows that I would need to divide/create a hard drive partition for Mac and Windows (Parrellels Desktop) , i.e. 500 GB for Mac, 500 GB for Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side?

I presume that this would need to be done at the time that I would be installing Parrallels Desktop/Windows?

I'm planning on getting a 3TB hard drive to use for backups of the Mac side and also the Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side, with Time Machine, that's if its possible to backup Parrellels Desktop/Windows side with Time Machine?

Would 3TB be a reasonable enough capacity for me to be able to have a collection of backups for at least a few months worth of backups, the backups would include the Mac side and the Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side too?

Thanks again.

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Answer 3

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 2, 2012 12:38 AM in response to tal1971

Bump.

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Answer 4

Sep 2, 2012 4:32 AM in response to tal1971

I would use a seperate strategy for backing up the

virtual machines in Parallels. If you make just a

change in a text document in the Windows VM,

Time Machine will see it as a change to the VM

container and back up the entire VM. A lot of

space and time will be wasted.

Therefore, in Parallels, set the preference to disable

Time Machine backup of VM and use a Windows

based strategy for backing up incremental changes

in the VM. Also a good idea, is to just make a

copy of the entire VM from time to time by copying

the container file somewhere.

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Answer 5

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 2, 2012 11:19 AM in response to woodmeister50

woodmeister50 wrote:

I would use a seperate strategy for backing up the

virtual machines in Parallels. If you make just a

change in a text document in the Windows VM,

Time Machine will see it as a change to the VM

container and back up the entire VM. A lot of

space and time will be wasted.

Therefore, in Parallels, set the preference to disable

Time Machine backup of VM and use a Windows

based strategy for backing up incremental changes

in the VM. Also a good idea, is to just make a

copy of the entire VM from time to time by copying

the container file somewhere.

Thanks for the help its much appreciated.

I didnt realise that the Virtual Machine that Parrallels Desktop created, was just a single file that contained Windows, and whatever programs etc I had installed.

If that is correct, then I think the simplest way, would be to use a 500 GB external hard drive that I have, and use this solely for backing the VM/PVM file that Parrallels Desktop had created.

I don't expect much to change on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side, so I would probably only backup the VM/PVM file (to my 500 GB external hard drive ) on a weekly basis or if I was going to do something on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side and thought that I might regret the change later. If I did indeed regret the change or another scenario of something getting messed up on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side, I could simply copy the VM/PVM file back over from my external hard drive to the same location of where the VM/PVM file is located on the iMac, and after doing this, the VM/Parrellels Desktop side would be back to the exact way it was, at the time that VM/PVM file had been created. Is this correct/possible?

I think I would purchase an additional external hard drive for to use solely with Time Machine.

I'm learning things as I go on and appologise for my lack of knowledge about the Mac way of doing things, I've been solely a Windows user for 10 years, so the Mac way is different to what I'm used to.

Thanks again.

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Answer 6

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 3, 2012 12:09 AM in response to tal1971

Bump.

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Answer 7

Sep 3, 2012 2:45 AM in response to tal1971

tal1971 wrote:

....

I don't expect much to change on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side, so I would probably only backup the VM/PVM file (to my 500 GB external hard drive ) on a weekly basis or if I was going to do something on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side and thought that I might regret the change later. If I did indeed regret the change or another scenario of something getting messed up on the VM/Parrellels Desktop side, I could simply copy the VM/PVM file back over from my external hard drive to the same location of where the VM/PVM file is located on the iMac, and after doing this, the VM/Parrellels Desktop side would be back to the exact way it was, at the time that VM/PVM file had been created. Is this correct/possible?

Should not be a problem. Actually, pretty much what I do.

As I don't constantly add/remove apps, I just occasionally

copy my entire VM container to back it up. Then, from

within Windows, I use SyncToy to back up data to a USB

memory stick.

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Answer 8

Sep 3, 2012 3:29 AM in response to tal1971

Are you aware that the documents etc that you use in Parallels/Windows can still be stored in your Mac Documents folder. If it is just the Windows documents you are concerned about, storing them in the Mac Documents will mean that they get backed up by Time Machine anyway. I have a copy of a clean Windows virtual machine stored and I backup the Windows documents using Time Machine as I described above. In the event that my virtual machine gets corrupted (it can happen - that's why I moved away from Windows as far as possible!), I still have working copies and backups of all the Windows documents and I just create a working copy of my clean Windows machine. It will access your documents (untouched by the Windows problem) exactly as it did before.

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Answer 9

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 3, 2012 6:17 AM in response to woodmeister50

Thanks very much woodmeister for the help, it's much appreciated.

Nice to know that this is possible. I just didn't realise initially that the Parrallels Desktop installation, Windows installation, installed programs would all be contained in one file (the PVM/VM file).

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Answer 10

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Sep 3, 2012 6:22 AM in response to Medium Dave

Thanks Medium Dave I didn't know this. This is something else to consider.

I expect though that I will be changing very little on my VM/Windows side so I'll probably back the PVM/VM file up every few days or once a week, but I'll consider your recommendation also.

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