Only backup changes of the VM with Time Machine

Hello,

is it possible to only backup changes of the virtual machine using Time Machine?

Thanks for your help

 

The virtual hard drive is stored as one large file, so any changes will cause Time Machine to back up the entire file. I recommend using Synk or an Automator action to periodically copy the Parallels VMs to another drive (perhaps a folder on your Time Machine drive).

 

The KB article Backing up virtual machines with Time Machine states that enabling SmartGuard improves integration of Parallels with Time Machine. What does this option do and what does improved integration mean, if Time Machine will always back up the whole file?

 

It divides the whole file into smaller files, not sure the size of these segments, I think they are 2 GB each, as such it only backs up the segments that have changed, it's not a perfect solution, far from it, as just changing one byte in one file in Windows will make TM backup the whole segment where that file is. I personally prefer to copy the PVMs from time to time.

 

What about backing up the initial state of the VM right after installing and exclude it from further backups. Instead I could back up every snapshot created. Is that possible and is it a better strategy?

 

Excluding it from further back ups means it won't appear in TM later backups and would eventually be deleted when TM trims backups, that's how TM works. Really, TM is good for backing up OS X, it's optimized for that, it has no business backing up Windows, Parallels provides a solution for TM integration, but if you want an optimal solution you should use a Windows back up tool, you might or not copy your VMs initial state, but a robust Windows backup solution will be able to recreate all your Windows install in a new an empty VM anyway.

As for me, like I said, i just copy it from time to time, and keep the current copy and the one before. My files and documents are all on the OS X side anyway (shared folders).