Using Linux Guest or VB Snapshots for Backup
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dEhiN
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 21. May 2010, 00:23
- Primary OS: MS Windows 10
- VBox Version: PUEL
- Guest OSses: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4, Debian 10, Debian GNU/Hurd
- Location: Canada
Using Linux Guest or VB Snapshots for Backup
Hi all, I just installed Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 on my Windows laptop. As part of the welcome suggestions, system snapshots are recommended to set up. I was wondering though if anyone else has had experience with this. Would it make more sense to use VB snapshots instead? Or is there a point to using the Linux OS system snapshots? In this case, due to not having a lot of free space on my laptop, I've started small and given my Linux guest a 24 GB sda and 30 GB sdb. So, I don't really want to use up that space with system snapshots, if I can avoid it. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance.
Host: HP EliteBook 8470p -- Windows 10 Pro -- 16 GB DDR3-1600 RAM -- 1 TB SATA-3 SSD -- Intel Dual-Core i5 3220M
Guest: VirtualBox 6.1.16 r140961 (Qt5.6.2) -- Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 -- 4 GB RAM -- 4 GB swap -- 100 GB /
Guest: VirtualBox 6.1.16 r140961 (Qt5.6.2) -- Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 -- 4 GB RAM -- 4 GB swap -- 100 GB /
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mpack
- Site Moderator
- Posts: 39134
- Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
- Primary OS: MS Windows 10
- VBox Version: PUEL
- Guest OSses: Mostly XP
Re: Using Linux Guest or VB Snapshots for Backup
VBox snapshots have nothing to do with making backups. If you don't believe me then try deleting a snapshot VDI, and see how easily you can recover the VM (answer: you can't, unless you have a real backup of the VM folder to a second drive).
I wasn't aware that Linux guests now have a volume snapshot feature. If it works like the Windows VSS service then you don't "take snapshots", the system does it automatically when some app needs a virtual frozen disk state, and usually that state is discarded when the app no longer needs it. A common use is to create a virtual disk image which is then backed up to secondary storage and then discarded from the primary drive.
Personally I would use neither feature. I back up my VMs by shutting down the VM and copying the VM folder to a backup drive: a NAS in my case, but a USB or non-RAID network folder is fine too.
I entirely distrust the VBox snapshots feature: if you understand how the feature works then you know that each snapshot creates a new single point of failure for the entire VM, which is really the opposite of what a backup does.
I wasn't aware that Linux guests now have a volume snapshot feature. If it works like the Windows VSS service then you don't "take snapshots", the system does it automatically when some app needs a virtual frozen disk state, and usually that state is discarded when the app no longer needs it. A common use is to create a virtual disk image which is then backed up to secondary storage and then discarded from the primary drive.
Personally I would use neither feature. I back up my VMs by shutting down the VM and copying the VM folder to a backup drive: a NAS in my case, but a USB or non-RAID network folder is fine too.
I entirely distrust the VBox snapshots feature: if you understand how the feature works then you know that each snapshot creates a new single point of failure for the entire VM, which is really the opposite of what a backup does.