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MacosNerd · May 27, 2008, 10:09 PM

I just noticed that my fusion VM is not being backed up by TM. I'm not sure why, its not in the Do not backup list. I was having problems with fusion and thought grabbing a version of it a from a few days ago would solve the problem. I went into TM and noticed that its not there, the folder is and the vmware.log file is in Time Machine, just not my 10gig Windows XP virtual file.

Any thoughts on why this would occur and how I could fix this?

Chuckit · May 27, 2008, 10:40 PM

I'm guessing you're using a version of Fusion older than 1.1.2. If so, upgrade.

TETENAL · May 28, 2008, 06:27 AM

Backing up 10 GB every hour isn't such a great idea anyway probably.

MacosNerd · May 28, 2008, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Backing up 10 GB every hour isn't such a great idea anyway probably.

I know, its one of those tug of war things that Im wrestling with. Use TM and have the automated backups but lose 10g of storage for each backup or do it manually but that introduces my laziness.

I have had a need to maintain a series of backups because I use fusion for my job and so having incremental backups is a good thing even if that incremental backup is a 10gig hit.

MacosNerd · May 28, 2008, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I'm guessing you're using a version of Fusion older than 1.1.2. If so, upgrade.

I think it is an older version. I'll wait for the next version to go gold (if it hasn't done so already).

Chuckit · May 28, 2008, 12:55 PM

1.1.2 is already released. Just grab the upgrade and it's supposed to enable Time Machine.

turtle777 · May 28, 2008, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

1.1.2 is already released. Just grab the upgrade and it's supposed to enable Time Machine.

But it will NOT do incremental updates (changes only).

If I had my two VM's backed up, my TM volume (500 GB) would be full after a day (2 x 10 x 24).

-t

Chuckit · May 28, 2008, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by turtle777

But it will NOT do incremental updates (changes only).

If I had my two VM's backed up, my TM volume (500 GB) would be full after a day (2 x 10 x 24).

-t

That's true, Time Machine in its current form can't do that with any file. I think that's what TETENAL was warning about earlier.

Mind, that only applies if your VM is constantly changing 24 hours a day. But it will be a pretty big space drain even if you only use Fusion once a week.

besson3c · May 28, 2008, 01:45 PM

I believe Qemu provides some command line tools for mounting VMWare vmdk disk images. Why not just write a script to mount your Windows partition, and rsync over the deltas to another machine as a means of backup?

besson3c · May 28, 2008, 01:49 PM

Does VMWare Fusion do the multi-segment vmdk file thing? If so, forget my suggestion, the Qemu tools work with a single disk image.

I don't know why VMWare doesn't just use a single sparse disk image.

MacosNerd · May 29, 2008, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I believe Qemu provides some command line tools for mounting VMWare vmdk disk images. Why not just write a script to mount your Windows partition, and rsync over the deltas to another machine as a means of backup?

I'm not using a true disk image, at least in the OSX/boot camp sense. I'm using a VM from fusion so there's no mounting needed.

besson3c · May 29, 2008, 03:36 PM

MacOSNerd: VMWare writes its VMs to disk images.

TETENAL · May 29, 2008, 05:37 PM

Can it use sparse bundle disk images? That would solve the Time Machine issue.

besson3c · May 29, 2008, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Can it use sparse bundle disk images? That would solve the Time Machine issue.

Not totally. If you grew your sparse image to 5 gig and changed a single byte in the image, it would still attempt to backup the entire image.

The only way around this is to put the image file on the exclude list and backup the contents of the image.

TETENAL · May 29, 2008, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Not totally. If you grew your sparse image to 5 gig and changed a single byte in the image, it would still attempt to backup the entire image.

No, not with sparse bundle images. It will only back up the band where this byte is in.

besson3c · May 29, 2008, 06:50 PM

Oh yeah, I forgot about OS X sparse bundle images. There are also sparse disk images, which is what I was thinking of.

Sparse bundles are a nice little Apple innovation.

MacosNerd · May 29, 2008, 07:33 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

MacOSNerd: VMWare writes its VMs to disk images.

Yes but I thought it was a propriety disk image, that is one that cannot be mounted in OSX.

besson3c · May 29, 2008, 07:34 PM

Originally Posted by MacosNerd

Yes but I thought it was a propriety disk image, that is one that cannot be mounted in OSX.

And I'm saying that they can be, but only the single file, non-segmented vmdk files.

MacosNerd · May 29, 2008, 10:07 PM

Still seems more work then is needed. TM was what I was hoping to leverage and to Chuckits point, once I upgraded my fusion app, TM is backing that puppy up.