Suggestion: Snapshot Manager Scheduling Options?

Discussion in 'Feature Suggestions' started by cmartinez, Jan 29, 2009.

  1. cmartinez

    cmartinez Bit poster

    Messages:
    9
    Would it be possible to control when Snapshots occur? It would be great to schedule Snapshots for the hours which I am not using the computer. I don't change enough settings in my XP OS to necessitate multiple Snapshots throughout the day. Once a night may be sufficient.

    Unfortunately a Snapshot may start up when Parallels is idle and I am working in the MacOS environment. Not only can I not work in Parallels during the Snapshot creation and deletion, but it also slows down my whole computer (though it doesn't seem to be reflected in CPU usage).

    Thanks.
     
  2. DaTa

    DaTa Hunter

    Messages:
    192
  3. cmartinez

    cmartinez Bit poster

    Messages:
    9
    Thanks for the heads up on the notification option. It helps. Though it would still be nice to schedule automatic updates for off-hours (e.g. 2 am).
     
  4. DaTa

    DaTa Hunter

    Messages:
    192
    Hi, cmartinez

    glad to hear that my advise helps. A little trick about "off-hours":
    - Let us say it is 9 am at yours now and you wish snapshot to run at 9 pm every day.
    - Allow snapshot to run now and change "Interval for taking a new snapshot" to 12 hours.
    - Let it create one at 9 pm and change interval again to 24 hours.

    Simple mathematic actions will give you what you want.
     
  5. Dent McCutcheon

    Dent McCutcheon Bit poster

    Messages:
    9
    Scheduling Snapshot creation time

    That last suggestion is the most useful one I've seen on this topic yet, though still not as good as being able to actually schedule the time of day the snapshot is created using a dialog or utility dedicated to that purpose.

    I frequently work from home accessing my WinXP virtual machine under Parallels 6 via remote Desktop over an IPSec VPN link. Even though I have the box checked for 'Notify me before snapshot creation', since I'm working via RDC I don't see the dialog warning me of the pending snapshot creation and my RDC session just hangs without warning when a snapshot is created. My only option is to disconnect and check back later to see if it's responding again.

    I appreciate the last hint about scheduling 12 hrs ahead, then changing schedule to 24 hrs. after a successful snapshot at the desired time. This is sort of a kludge solution though IMHO. I sure hope some facility will be provided in the future to explicitly schedule the hour(s) of day for snapshots to be created.
     
  6. JeffR1

    JeffR1 Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    It's been a while since this topic was posted and this feature has not ever been added to Parallels. This would be a highly desirable feature. I use Parallels on my Mac to run multiple Windows VM's for work. Without the ability to schedule the snapshots for after-hours, i frequently have my day interrupted to make a snapshot.
     
  7. KevinB16

    KevinB16 Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    This request has been on the books for in excess of 10 years. There are posts that far back. How about you parallels guys getting off your collective backsides and putting in a very simple scheduled start time for autoprotect snapshots. If the time is during the day I lose at least an hour whilst parallels grunges around deleting a snapshot.
    The DS solution is to have an interval of 24 or 48 hours and start the FIRST snapshot when you want subsequent snapshots. I have to get up at 3:00AM to do this (which I keep forgetting to do and then lose a hour or so in the middle of the day).

    I am assuming since this has been around for 10 years you guys are unlikely to get off your collective backsides and fix this issue, more of a need to rant than expecting you to da anything.
     

Share This Page