Parrellels Desktop/Windows, will Time Machine backup

Hi everyone, I've just joined the forum, so appologise if I've posted in the wrong section.

I'm thinking of moving to an iMac for my next computer, probably in the next 6 months or so, but I have a some questions I wondered if you might be able to help me with.

I'm wanting to use Time Machine as its basically going to do its job with no input from me (once I've switched it on and selected the drive to use for backups). I'm planning on getting Parrallels Desktop and installing Windows. Now I know Time Machine takes backups every hour. But I was wondering if it will also backup not only the Mac side but the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side) too.

For example, if I install a program on the Mac side, edit a file, delete a file etc, Time Machine will backup the changes on its next backup. If I done the same while running Windows, i.e install a program on the Windows side, edit a file, delete a file etc, does Time Machine backup these changes for the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side) too?

Presently on my Windows PC, I use Acronis True Image to take backups, I've used this for the last 5 years and its saved my neck many times. If Time Machine would not backup the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side), would it be possible for me to install Acronis True Image, then take a full backup with it. Would doing this full backup, backup EVERYTHING including the Windows side as well as the Mac side. And from there, if I were to restore off of a backup I had taken, would the restore, restore both the Parrallels Desktop (Windows side) and the Mac side.

Basically in a worst case scenario if my iMac had got messed up and would not boot up.

How do I go about getting not only the Mac side restored to an earlier and working state, but the Windows side too. It's just I know that at some point in time, I would need to do this has I've needed to do it in Windows several times in the last 5 years with Acronis True Image.

Thanks in advance.

 

Parallels Support here!

Yes! Parallels Desktop for Mac can easily be optimized to be safely backed up by your Time Machine.

For more information, please read this article - http://kb.parallels.com/8827

Thank you!

 

Thanks very much for the help.

On the article it says:

'When backing up the virtual machine, it will only backup the recent changes (the latest snapshot), but not the whole virtual hard drive.
Thus, the backup process will take less time and use less space on your Time Machine storage device.'

Could you clarify that when backing up the virtual machine for the very first time. Would the whole virtual hard drive be backed up with this first backup (like what Time Machine does with the Mac side on its very first backup) then subsequent backups would then just be backing up the recent changes (the latest snapshot).

 

Also, is it possible to independently restore either the Virtual Machine/Parrellels Desktop/Windows side, or the Mac side.

For example. If I had a problem on just the Windows side (Parrellels Desktop side) but the Mac side was absolutely fine. Could I use Time Machine to just restore the Windows side (Parrellels Desktop side) and leave the Mac side untouched?

Thanks again.

 

Yes, the first time the whole .pvm (the whole virtual hard drive) will be backed up.

And yes, you can restore a single file from Time Machine (such as the .pvm) by using the steps in this Apple KB article under "Restoring data from Time Machine backups" -> "Restoring specific files or folders" http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

 

Thanks very much for the help.

I read the article in your link, but I could not see any mention of how to restore a pvm/restoring from pvm or any mention of Parrellels Desktop either.

Would you or anyone else be able to provide full instructions on how I would be able to restore the Windows/Parrellels Desktop/Virtual Machine side with Time Machine. Sorry for all the questions but I've been a Windows user for 10 years and Mac is totally new to me.

Thanks again.

 

I forgot to mention at the start, that I am considering getting an iMac with a 1TB drive, and if its possible, I want to divide the hard drive size for Mac and Windows (Parrellels Desktop) equally, i.e. 500 GB for Mac, 500 GB for Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side, is this possible?

I presume that this would need to be done at the time that I would be installing Parrallels Desktop/Windows?

I'm planning on getting a 2TB hard drive to use for backups of the Mac side and also (now that I know its possible) the Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side, with Time Machine.

Would 2TB be a reasonable enough capacity for me to be able to have a collection of backups for at least a few months worth of backups, the backups would include the Mac side and the Windows (Parrellels Desktop) virtual machine side too. I would probably be only keeping the last 3-5 backups of the VM Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side due to the full VM getting backed up everytime Time Machine takes a backup and obviously keeping only the last 3-5 backups of the VM Windows (Parrellels Desktop) side would reduce the amount of hard drive space taken up.

And also I was thinking that I might set Time Machine to only backup the Windows (Parrellels Desktop) VM side, only once per week. I would probably set an ongoing reminder on my Mac to remind me to do this. Would this be possible?

Thanks again.

 

There is not specific steps for restoring Parallels Desktop, but there is specific steps for restoring individual files. A .pvm would be one of these single files you can restore which contains the information of your Parallels Virtual Machine (containing Windows).

 

Thanks very much for the help received, its much appreciated. I'll no doubt have more questions before I get my iMac and Parrellels Desktop, but I'll add these in due course.

Thanks again.

 

I asked one of our Support Engineers and she replied, "I think it is better to not partition the drive, the space is occupied not by Parallels Desktop itseld, but by virtual machines created, and in the configuration of the virtual machine he can make his virtual hard drive "expanding" and set the maximum size it can grow to. So, if he has only 1 virtual machine, he can just configure the size of the virtual hard disk and it will ensure that the disk will not exceed that size (however, some additional space will be occupied by memory files, logs, description files) and the virtual machine will be on the same partition as Mac OS"

I think the amount of memory you need available for backup will depend upon how much information you have on the VM to back up.

In regards to only backing up your Windows VM, only once per week, I think that would be a question for Apple since it's dependent on Time Machine settings.

 

I'm new to learning about Mac, and I assumed that I would need to reserve part of the hard drive's capacity for use solely with Parrallels Desktop/Windows/VM.

So basically, when I would install Parrellels Desktop off of the CD or DVD disk that it would come on when I purchased it. I would just install it on to the hard drive, basically like I would if I was installing any other program off of a disk and they would be no need or requirement to create a separate partition on the hard drive solely reserved for Parrallels Desktop/Windows/VM to use?

You mention that:

'And in the configuration of the virtual machine he can make his virtual hard drive "expanding" and set the maximum size it can grow to. So, if he has only 1 virtual machine, he can just configure the size of the virtual hard disk and it will ensure that the disk will not exceed that size'

Would you be able to provide some instructions on how to do this or an article on how to do it has this is all new to me?

Thanks a lot for the help received, its much appreciated.

 

I'm going to basically get the largest capacity external hard drive that I can afford. I saw a 3TB external hard drive, so I'll probably get this for my backup purposes. Plus I currently have a 1TB external hard drive, so I can use this in case I need anymore than 3TB worth of storage.

I assume that it is possible to use another external hard drive if one external hard drive becomes full?

 

I've since learned that Time Machine can be easily switched off. So what I'm planning on doing is, set an ongoing reminder on my iMac, to remind me to do this weekly backup. I won't really be adding or altering that much on my iMac (once everything is setup/installed) from week to week, so a once a week backup will be enough for me.

 

Beware that there are some serious shortcomings to the SmartGuard feature. The way it's supposed to work is that the TM should contain one full backup of the VM, and once that is done only backup the SmartGuard snapshots. But this is not working correctly. Check out this post for details: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=261878

PS: I'm surprised that this thread is getting so much attention from Parallels support, while the post linked to above is totally ignored by support... :-(

 

I've done a far bit of research today and have seen a lot of mention of Carbon Copy Cloner.

From what I can gather CCC will allow me to make a bootable clone of the iMac hard drive to an external hard drive, thus doing away with the need to make a bootable startup/install disk or USB thumb drive?

I would assume the CCC would backup both the Mac side and the VM/Parrellels Desktop/Windows side too. Has anyone done this?