virtualbox.org

I'm using VB to run Windows 7 on MacOSX 10.6.2. Obviously the Win 7 Guest virtual machine is constantly changing when it's active. Time machine will back up any file that's been changed once an hour.

My questions:

I'd like to do a manual backup of my Win 7 virtual machine and possibly some snapshots. I'd also like to exclude the Win 7 VM from Time Machine backups because it will quickly overrun my backup drive.

Has anyone else resolved this?

Questions:

VBox Win7 files are stored in /Users/MYNAME/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Windows7.vdi
(It looks like this file hasn't changed since I installed VBox, but I'm not sure.

Can this file be copied to external disk?

Or, should I use the 'export' function in VBox. (I want to be sure I get a complete back up and I see snap shot files and a number of other files in
/Users/MYNAME/Library/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows7

Finally, any suggestions on eliminating VBox from Time Machine backup? (I can always reload application, but don't want to recreate my Win7 program installation)
Or, do only the snapshots get backed up? (some of mine look pretty big, but they may be what I need in case of recovery. /Users/MYNAME/Library/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows7/Snapshots/

I've used VMware Fusion and it separates the Fusion Application (their VBox) from their 'Virtual Machine' (VBox Win7 file) so it's easy. Stop application and drag/drop guest file onto external disk. They've also set things up so that Time Machine doesn't back up the Virtual Machine file. Is there a similar setting for VBox?

A note: I prefer VBox to VMware. It's a little harder to set up but it's smaller and faster!

taka wrote:VBox Win7 files are stored in /Users/MYNAME/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Windows7.vdi
(It looks like this file hasn't changed since I installed VBox, but I'm not sure.

Correct.
When you took the first snapshot, the base VDI file is frozen and any further changes are written to a differencing disk file. See section 5.5 of the user manual and this link: Tutorial: All about VDIs.
The link between the differencing disks and the base disk is stored in the VirtualBox.xml file.

If you want a full backup, backup the entire /Users/MYNAME/Library/VirtualBox/ folder, or at least the entire machine folder and the VirtualBox.xml file.
You can create a flattened clone of the 'Current State' of the virtual disk, see here: Cloning a VM with multiple snapshots.

Thank you.

Sounds like Time Machine would only backup first VDI file then the differencing files so backup impact will be small. I can create a full backup as well by backing up whole directory. I was close and did read the differencing but wasn't sure of the impact on Time Machine. Sounds like VBox has one-upped VMware Fusion 2.x. (I don't have and don't see a reason to purchase Fusion 3)

Open Time Machine preferences go to Options and add any folder that you don't want time machine to backup /Library/VirtualBox perhaps.

Also, this Time MAchine editor allows you to set when you want TM to back up. It really works and I've been using it for sometime.

http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/

Hope this helps