Windows 7 host, Debian VirtualBox - Need to backup

[huwsonfirst]

Heya folks,

I have Windows 7 with a Debian virtualbox. Debian has my web and database as well as bind and mail servers configured and all running happily. I had to do a rebuild recently because I used WinDirStat to find drive bloat and thought I could delete a bunch of snapshots from my previous server build. I learned - the hard way - that this isn't a good idea.

I've rebuilt and reconfigured the server. Now...I can't seem to find a decent article or thread on making a backup.

My preferred option is to do a weekly full backup to google drive. Ultimately I want to be able to copy the backup from google drive, drop it down here on my Windows install, fire up Oracle VM VirtualBox and, I don't know, create a new machine and choose the "use an existing virtual hard drive" from the wizard. Preferably one that means as soon as I boot the virtual debian install, there's no additional config required.

Is there a way to do this? I tried using the virtual media manager, chose copy and placed it on another drive. When I tried using the 'use an existing virtual hard drive' option in the create new wizard, it wouldn't load as a result of there being an existing debian entry that has the same uid (or something like that). I'm assuming I'd need to blow away the existing debian virtualbox entry, then create a new one from that copied vmi file.

But yeah, if anyone can suggest a good way for me to backup my Debian Server VirtualBox up to google drive and retain all the configuration in the server itself so I don't have to do much other than copy and paste the backup to restore, that'd be fantastic!

Cheers,
Huwsonfirst

[Perryg]

I find the easiest and fastest way is to Shut the guest down, copy the entire guests folder to a different location. Then if something happens copy the latest folder back while VirtualBox is off and it will work.

PS: I would stay away from snapshots.