Help! How to Backup Virtualbox/Windows Contents with Mac????

[seansmith]

i am running virtualbox with windows xp on my macbook. i have folders upon folders of very important information stored on the windows desktop inside of virtual box

i am planning on doing a one click time machine back up on my macbook. will this also back up all of my folders and contents inside of my virtualbox?

where on my mac can i physically locate all of the files stored on my virtualbox/windows?

Thanks

[mpack]

None of us from this distance can know how you've configured your Mac, but if the backup process has been configured to back up your document folders, and you haven't moved the VirtualBoxVMs folder (or individial VMs) somewhere else, then they should get backed up along with everything else. You may want to ensure that the backup medium is happy to handle humungous VDI files.

[rpmurray]

You'll want to make sure that you've shut down all your VMs and quit VirtualBox before you make the backup. As long as the folder that contains the guest vdi and the settings files aren't excluded from the backup it should backup the whole thing.

VirtualBox by default stores everything in the users library folder:

[hard drive]/Users/<your account>/Library/VirtualBox

This assumes you haven't configured VirtualBox to store its files in a different location. If you're using Lion or Mountain Lion as the host the user library folder is hidden by default. You can get to it by holding down the option key and clicking the Go menu while in the Finder.

[bruce.desertrat]

You may want to ensure that the backup medium is happy to handle humungous VDI files.

Over and over and over again, because those get changed every time you do something in windows, so Time Machine sees them as changed files.

Because I don't have a 500 terabyte Time Machine disk I do the following for backing up VM data:

1) Exclude your Virtualbox folder from time Machine
2) Manually back up your Virtualbox folder as needed (ie when you make large changes to the VM, like install software, etc. Alternatively, save your snapshots somewhere that is backed up)
3) Create a shared folder with your mac *outside* the VirtualBox folders, making sure that folder IS backed up by Time Machine
4) Save all those important files from Windows in that shared folder.

Voila'...backups of your important files (as files, too) without clogging your time machine volume with redundant copied of your VDI's.