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Parallels Windows Guest OS Backup Scheme


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I'm currently running BootCamp, but am also considering Parallels with Windows XP as a Guest OS. I'm assuming that since the Guest OS is stored as a single file, backing up this large file with every changed file backup is likely overkill.

 

Does anyone have a good, workable scheme to backup from the Guest OS? Perhaps some script that moves changed files to a folder visable to Mac OS X, then backed up normally from Retrospect?

 

Thanks for any ideas!

 

John

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While the method you describe would likely work fine, I would have to exit Parallels and do a separate backup of the host Mac OS X operating system on my Macbook Pro. My goal would be do back up both OS's at the same time.

 

I'm guessing that the default behavior of the Parallels virtual machine file is that it has its timestamp updated every time you run Parallels. In that case, backing up from OS X, the whole file would be backed up every time (many GB) even if only a few MB were actually changed from within the Guest OS.

 

I'm thinking that a disk-space sensitive way to acheive my goal would be to run a Backup program from within Windows to copy changed files to a folder on the Host OS, and have those files backed up when running Retrospect from Mac OS X.

 

In the end, your solution might be just as easy -- run Retrospect from within Parallels to the backup server machine, then run it again from the Host Mac OS X system, and exclude the Parallels virtual machine.

 

Thanks for the idea.

 

John

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Quote:

In the end, your solution might be just as easy -- run Retrospect from within Parallels to the backup server machine, then run it again from the Host Mac OS X system...

 


 

Except that's not the solution Russ was offering. You should probably re-read what he wrote.

 

I have no idea if Retrospect running on the Host Mac can see/access Retrospect Client software running on a Guest OS of Parallels, but it would be easy to test.

 

Then the only requirement would be for your VM to be up and running when the backup occurs.

 

Dave

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John, sorry you misunderstood my suggestion. Run the Windows Retrospect client on the Parallels virtualization, leave Parallels running, use a selector on the Mac Retrospect backup to exclude the Parallels VM file. Retrospect should see both machines (mac and windows) and should back up the two machines like two ordinary machines - they just happen to be running on the same physical hardware. They should also have separate (different) IPs as a normal matter of course. Should just work, let us know. Only issue should be that it uses up an extra client license for Retrospect (for the Windows virtual machine).

 

Russ

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