Cannot omit VM from Time Machine Backup

T

ThomasS9

Bit poster
Hi all,

New to this whole VM thing so please bare with me.

I originally set up Parallels to not be backed up by Time Machine (I didn't want to bloat my external HDD with 20GB+ .pvm backups). I also figured the files I work on in Windows were all shared with Mac and presumably backed up there (please flag if my thinking is flawed).

Anyway, I had 'Do not back up with Time Machine' ticked in the Parallels Desktop Control Center > Windows 7 > Backup settings along with the 20GB .pvm file excluded from backups via the Time Machine settings. This seemed to work fine as the next backup/s did not increase drastically in size.

Now, however, when Time Machine attempts to back up I am told it will be a 20GB+ process. I do not have 20GB+ new files on my computer since the last back up. I guess it is attempting to back to the .pvm file I supposedly excluded form back up. I can't explain why this is happening all of a sudden.

Any idea on what be going on? Seems strange. Happy to hear of best practice when it comes to backing up OSX / VM too.

TIA.

(Running OSX 10.11.4 and Parallels 11.1.3)
 
Hello ThomasS9,
The alternate method of excluding the Virtual Machine files(.pvm) from the Time Machine backup would be using the Time Machine options on the host Mac.
You can refer to this article on how to exclude files from Time Machine backups. To find the Virtual Machine files on the Mac, you may use the Spotlight to search for '.pvm'. You could also refer to this KB article to locate the Virtual Machine files.
 
PaulChris@Parallels said:
Hello ThomasS9,
The alternate method of excluding the Virtual Machine files(.pvm) from the Time Machine backup would be using the Time Machine options on the host Mac.
You can refer to this article on how to exclude files from Time Machine backups. To find the Virtual Machine files on the Mac, you may use the Spotlight to search for '.pvm'. You could also refer to this KB article to locate the Virtual Machine files.
Click to expand...

Hi Paul, thanks for your response. I mentioned in my original message that this too did not work. Any idea?
 
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