What is actually the deal with using Time Machine

[douglerner]

I heard different things from different people - including conflicting opinions in the docs and Parallel's support - about using Time Machine with Windows XP virtual machines.

If it is true that the entire HD gets backed up again every time any change is made then of course I would want to exclude it. Is that still true with version 4 though? Support seems to tell me it's fine to use Time Machine and it it doesn't do wasteful backups, but the docs and other people seem to say something different - that since the HD file is one humongous file that any change causes a new multi-gigabyte Time Machine backup. Which is correct?

And another question - is there any difference between excluding the VM backup in its own configuration settings as opposed to excluding the folder in the Time Machine preferences directly?

Thanks,

doug

 

[estrelnikov]

I heard different things from different people - including conflicting opinions in the docs and Parallel's support - about using Time Machine with Windows XP virtual machines.

If it is true that the entire HD gets backed up again every time any change is made then of course I would want to exclude it. Is that still true with version 4 though? Support seems to tell me it's fine to use Time Machine and it it doesn't do wasteful backups, but the docs and other people seem to say something different - that since the HD file is one humongous file that any change causes a new multi-gigabyte Time Machine backup. Which is correct?

It will backup the whole .hdd each time. Please consider using snapshots instead, see the manual

And another question - is there any difference between excluding the VM backup in its own configuration settings as opposed to excluding the folder in the Time Machine preferences directly?

Thanks,

doug

No difference