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Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

  • 1.  Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 21, 2008 08:58 PM

    I've been automatically backing up my virtual machine, which is about 40 GB, every night using Time Machine. Unfortunately, every time a change is made, time machine re-backs up the entire virtual machine instead of just backing up the differences. Is there any way to work around this using Time Machine? If not, what recommended applications for OS X would allow me to have my virtual machine automatically backed up every night without wasting unnecessary disk space? The application would either need to overwrite the entire virtual machine every night so I always have the latest version, or itwould need to somehow just update the files that have changed or something like that. Basically, I just want to make sure I have a solid and usable backup of my latest virtual machine without wasting disk space like Time machine does.

    Can someone please recommend a solution for me, or multiple solutions?

    Thank you,

    DavidPaul



  • 2.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 21, 2008 10:50 PM

    I've been automatically backing up my virtual machine, which is about 40 GB, every night using Time Machine. Unfortunately, every time a change is made, time machine re-backs up the entire virtual machine instead of just backing up the differences. Is there any way to work around this using Time Machine?

    No, and this is one of the reasons I don't recommend using Time Machine to back up virtual machines. Time Machine works on the file level (as opposed to block level) - however, the problem is it's at the Mac file level, not the guest file level. Time Machine can't see inside the .vmdk blob, so as you noticed, any time you change anything in the file, it backs up the entire file. Say you have a text file and change one occurrence of "the" to "a". Time Machine creates a complete copy of the file (because it can't "see" inside the text file), even if it's a giant multi-MB text file. Same thing here, except instead of a text file, it's a virtual machine.

    Another option (not appropriate for everyone, but for casual use it should be fine) is to keep all your data on the host and access them from the guest using a HGFS shared folder or network share. This way Time Machine can see individual files (instead of the opaque blob) and back them up more intelligently.



  • 3.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 05:27 AM

    Thank you. I appreciate your answer. I am still very interested though in finding software that can back it up easily from my internal hard drive to my external USB drive. Does anyone know of a solution?



  • 4.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 06:13 AM

    What type of VM are you running inside? If it is a windows box you can use the ntbackup utility and have mapped drive as your destination for the backups.

    • Kyle



  • 5.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 04:41 PM

    I'm running Windows XP Pro. Yes, I can use NT backup, but I can't use that to backup the entire virtual machine can I? Can it make a full backup of itself?



  • 6.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 04:51 PM

    If you want the entire VM backed up you would backup the .vmdk and vmx files on the host machine (your mac). If you want to back up files within the windows XP box you can use ntbackup and yes it can backup everything inside the windows box. You can have it point to the external device if it is configured correctly. Unless your program can do network backups along the lines of what Vertas does for servers over the network, your easiest and cheapest (free) way of doing it is try out ntbackup. You can schedule and choose the types of backups and folders/files you want to backup.

    • Kyle



  • 7.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 03:47 PM

    I am still very interested though in finding software that can back it up easily from my internal hard drive to my external USB drive. Does anyone know of a solution?

    User Data Management can be carried out in many different ways and you should look to Forums that are more centric to general computing and or Google or you favorite search engine for Backup Solutions as the fact that this is being done in a Virtual Machine is no different then if it was a Physical Machine or from OS X.



  • 8.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 04:42 PM

    That is exactly what I'm doing with this forum. I'm under the assumption that this is a forum for discussion and I'm asking people what a good solution is. I did search Google and didn't find much for good OS X backup solutions besides superduper, and that only backs up entire volumes, not individual directories.



  • 9.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 05:41 PM

    That is exactly what I'm doing with this forum. I'm under the assumption that this is a forum for discussion and I'm asking people what a good solution is. I did search Google and didn't find much for good OS X backup solutions besides superduper, and that only backs up entire volumes, not individual directories.

    Yes this is a Fusion discussion forum however the point I'm trying to make is User Data Management and or Backup Solutions are not any different in the case of using Fusion and the same methodologies apply under the specific Host/Guest OSes and as such you'd probably find more information about User Data Management and or Backup Solutions in Forums specific to the OSes involved as this really isn't a Fusion issue in that context.

    I'm not saying don't ask and actually if you'd search the Forum you see this has been covered before and I'm just saying you'd find a lot more information about User Data Management and or Backup Solutions under OS X and or Windows in Forums centric to the OSes then you're going to find here.

    From the Host's perspective a Virtual Machine is nothing more then disk files and you can backup the entire Virtual Machine by simply copying it and has nothing to do with Fusion beyond shutting down the Virtual Machine and closing Fusion.

    From the Guest's perspective it is no different then if it were a Physical Machine and therefore has nothing to do with Fusion beyond running the Virtual Machine so you have access to the User Data that resides in the Virtual Machine and preforming whatever User Data Management methodology you care to employ that you would do on a Physical Machine.

    As far as SuperDuper! is concerned it can backup the whatever you configure it for. In other words you do not need to use the default scripts which would be All Files or just User Files or the other default available as you can create custom scripts to do what you want.



  • 10.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Dec 22, 2008 08:27 PM

    thank you everyone for your feedback and responses. I appreciate it very much. And I wish you all the best this holiday season.



  • 11.  RE: Automated nightly backup of virtual machine

    Posted Jul 27, 2009 02:50 AM

    I had a situation today develop where both host and VM became un-navigable; that is, mouse would move around but click actions did nothing. Contacted Apple Tech Support and had to reinstall os x; lost all 3rd party apps and VMs stored on host.

    I don't know how common my crash is, but IMHO, storing VM's on the host is vulnerable. It would make most sense to store VM's on a server or an external HD. Personally, and I admit without qualification, it seems an external HD is the way to go.

    Best,

    David Lambert

    Durham, NC USA