I did my first backup with Time Machine and noticed my Parallels PVM files where not in the folder that was backed up? I had two PVMs. A 60GB Windows8 and a 8GB Ubuntu. Is there a limit for TimeMachine for file sizes to be backed up?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
Make sure that you don;t have Parallels configured to not backup the machines in Time Machine. This is on the VM configuration page, under the Security tab:
No limit.
Look in System Preferences/Time Machine/Options and see if the files are excluded.
Also see.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3065094?answerId=15226638022#15226638022
I ran across the same issue after having to do a full restore to my MBP. P9 has some issues it seems on boot up (of a VM) it excludes backing up the pvm file by default. Spent the am on with their tech support (great by the way). The interactions of Time Machine and P9 are complex!
For now I am just copying (drag and drop) the pvm to an external drive at the end of the day.
If you used 'snapshots' in P9 you can recover from there; if your current pvm is functional. I learned those 'snapshots' are stored within the pvm though. Meaning if the pvm is gone - no snapshots.
Lots' of notes on the Parallels site about this.
One thing I suggest, is that you get a USB drive and
be very judicious at doing manual backups. Reason is
that with a VM such as your 60gig Win8, every time you
open it, when you quit Time Machine will back it up. This
could very quicly use up a lot of disk space. Also, it could
also slow things down signifigantly.
In reality, if you are backing up your data regularly on your VMs,
you really only need to do occaisional back ups of the machine
itself.
When it comes to data, whether in a VM or on the Mac itself,
you can never have to many backups.
On a personal note, I don't use Time Machine because the issue I
have with it is that you won't find out if it did its job until you need it.
I did check to see what was excluded. I even check the .Backup.log, and it wasn't excluded. All my files in my home folder was backed up except those two PVMs. What could have possibly caused that? It's so sad, that the actual files I need for my work, I cannot see it. Now I am here trying to look for a data recovery software to see if I can recover from my formatted Macbook SSD.
Any other recommendations?
I could bang my head against the wall. I wish I just did a manual copy of the VMs. The ~/Documents/Parallels folder was not "excluded" as far as I saw. If I had known there are complications, then I wouldn't have done a TimeMachine, and just do a file copy. I feel so silly right now.
And to make it worst, reading forums right now and it doesn't seem possible to even do a data recovery for a file so big (60GB). So I am gonna have to recreate the VM, and try to recall what I did with my project hehe of writing code for 12 hours. ***** to be me.
Oh well, thank you guys for you help. I have learn a really big lesson. Never trust a backup software for VERY BIG files.
Parallels PVM files missing in TimeMachine backup
