VM backup

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MikeFromMesa

Member
I am not sure if this post belong in this forum or the Windows Guest Forum, so if it is in the wrong place I would appreciate it if one of the moderators would move it.

I was going through some of the general settings for my Windows VM when I noticed the Acronis software offer for backing up the VM. I am familiar with Acronis since I used their backup software when I worked on Windows, but I wondered if there was any particular reason to not use other backup software for the VM. I know that the recommended settings are for Time Machine to not back up the VM but, since my VM pvm file is on an external ssd, Time Machine does not see it anyway.

I have been backing up my VM pvm, along with everything else on my usb 3 ssd, with Carbon Copy Cloner but the Acronis offer made me wonder if there is some reason for not doing that. That is, is there any particular reason for using the Acronis software rather than some other backup software for backing up the VM pvm file? Is there something particular about the file that makes backing it up with regular backup software fail?
 
Hello MikeFromMesa, It is just an information that you can use Acronis software to backup your virtual machine. If you want you can use any cloud-based backup software, make sure it will not encrypt or compress the files when it is backing up. It is always better to use an External Drive or Time machine for the pvm backup.Thanks!
 
Thank you for the speedy reply, but ...

> It is always better to use an External Drive or Time machine for the pvm backup

I am puzzled. If it is better to use something like Time Machine to make the backup, why is the default setting to NOT back up Parallels with Time Machine? I thought there must be some issue if the default was to not use it.
 
MikeFromMesa said:
Thank you for the speedy reply, but ...

> It is always better to use an External Drive or Time machine for the pvm backup

I am puzzled. If it is better to use something like Time Machine to make the backup, why is the default setting to NOT back up Parallels with Time Machine? I thought there must be some issue if the default was to not use it.
Click to expand...

By default, it is not selected because the pvm size is high compared to other files on Mac. Thanks!
 
> you can use any cloud-based backup software!

I noticed that everyone seems to be referring to cloud-based backup as though external drive backups were no longer useful. I, for one, prefer to backup to my own external usb drive and never backup to the cloud, for several reasons. First, I don't particularly want to wait on the upload and download times for a backup and second, I feel that personal usb drives are much more secure than cloud backup. The last thing I want to worry about is someone hacking into online backups, encrypting them and demanding ransom for the keys. Perhaps that is not a reasonable concern, but everything online is vulnerable and I prefer stuff that I feel is safer.

Perhaps just a personal quirk of mine.
 
MikeFromMesa said:
> you can use any cloud-based backup software!

I noticed that everyone seems to be referring to cloud-based backup as though external drive backups were no longer useful. I, for one, prefer to backup to my own external usb drive and never backup to the cloud, for several reasons. First, I don't particularly want to wait on the upload and download times for a backup and second, I feel that personal usb drives are much more secure than cloud backup. The last thing I want to worry about is someone hacking into online backups, encrypting them and demanding ransom for the keys. Perhaps that is not a reasonable concern, but everything online is vulnerable and I prefer stuff that I feel is safer.

Perhaps just a personal quirk of mine.
Click to expand...
We really understand your concern. Yes, you are right storing a big pvm file of large size will take some time to download and upload based on network connectivity. If you have a external drive always connected to a Mac then also the data might get infected or encrypted by a Crypto Locker virus. We have both advantage and disadvantage in using online backup and external backup.
 
> If you have a external drive always connected to a Mac then also the data might get infected or encrypted by a Crypto Locker virus.

My understanding is that CryptoLocker is a Windows virus, not a Mac virus, so I do not see how it could infect a Mac with an attached CCC backup connected to it but, in any case, I never leave my CCC backups connected to the main machine after the backup has completed. I detach them and store them someplace safe. And, just to be safe, I try to make multiple backups spaced a regular intervals, perhaps once a week, so if something does happen to one of those backups I have another that is only slightly older.

Still, backups are a chancey business as systems are often changing from hour to hour and even a recent backup may be somewhat out of date. I have had to rebuild systems from scratch more than once so I try to make sure anything really important is copied to multiple backup disks, but all local.
 
Hi MikeFromMesa, you are correct Crypto Locker is a Windows virus but when you run a Windows virtual machine on a Mac by default all sharing options are enabled through which all Windows applications can access files on the Mac side. If CrptoLocker infects Windows which is sharing with macOS then it will encrypt files on the Mac side too. We also understand your concern regarding backups.
 
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