Syncing VDI for use on multiple Hosts

[JR_77]

What's the best way to sync the entire contents of a VDI file for use between multiple hosts? I have an XP guest that I use on a few different Linux hosts, as well as one OSX host. I am constantly doing everything three times (OS updates, installing/uninstalling programs, etc...). Is there a good way to keep the VM the same on all three hosts?

I've thought about syncing the VDI file when the machine is shut down but then I'm constantly syncing one 40GB file. Since it's only one file, as seen from the host, then it will essentially be writing over, or rewriting the entire 40GB file every time. However, if I run the sync from within the VM, I could sync only the individual files that have changed but I think I would run into some problems syncing the files for the OS itself, like the registry and Windows folder.

I often have the three hosts on the same network, so a LAN only solution would work as well as an online syncing program. If it syncs the whole VDI as one file though, then I'm looking at a lot of traffic and could easily exceed my 250GB bandwidth limit after only a few syncs if it's an on line service/program.

Is there an easy way to do this, or do I just have to recopy the most recently modified VDI to the other hosts every time?

[JR_77]

Just had an idea, but I haven't tried it yet. Maybe I could boot the VM from an ISO of a liveCD and run a sync utility from there. Then I could avoid having to sync the entire VDI as one file, and still have access to all the files without any of them being locked by the OS.

[FrodoHobbits]

I was working on an image both at home and work and had the VDI on a small portable hard drive, Had VBox pointed to this image and it worked really well for me. Some will say that the image will run slow but I didn't run into this. I guess its down to what apps you are running etc.

[JR_77]

I was working on an image both at home and work and had the VDI on a small portable hard drive, Had VBox pointed to this image and it worked really well for me. Some will say that the image will run slow but I didn't run into this. I guess its down to what apps you are running etc.

I suppose that would be a lot easier than trying to sync several copies of the VDI in multiple locations. I guess I would have to make each host configured to also point to the external device for the config files, XML file, snapshot, etc..., and store all those on the external as well. Is that what you did?

I was also considering using one VDI, stored on a home server and accessing it from each host, or just leave the one host/guest running all the time and use RDP to log into it. What do you think would be the best option for performance/security?

[FrodoHobbits]

Never used or even thought about using RDP with guests so I can't really comment on that. Someone else might want to give you their opinion on this.

On the other subject, I just pointed each PC/laptop to the external VDI image and let VBox handle the other files in their respective directories.
I never once ran into any problems but this was about a year ago and since then there has been several major VBox upgrades.
Hope I have helped in some way.

[JR_77]

OK, I'll play around with it and see what works best. And yes, you have helped. Thank you. One more question though- were your hosts running the same OS before? I'll be trying to access the same XP guest VDI file from a Linux host and an OSX host, and maybe even a Windows 7 host on occasion. Just wondering if I'll run into any problems or have to disable 2D/3D acceleration, etc...

[FrodoHobbits]

were your hosts running the same OS

Hosts were running XP, Win7 & Ubuntu, I can't recall any problems.