virtualbox.org

I work on different places on my beautiful, stunning and ready to go Linux Virtual Machine. The VM is saved on my external SSD drive (connected on USB 3.0) and it works perfectly. Problems come when we talk about safety (e.g. if my drive fall or a suddently power off). So, at the moment, I created a batch script that I run everytime I start and end working that saves a copy of the whole drive on the PC where I'm working (the process usually takes around 1 minute). This works fairly fine but the main problem for me is that different backups are spread on different PCs and if I move to another location and my drive fails the last backups are not with me but on the latest PC where I'm working on. So this is very annoying mostly because the PCs where I'm working on are located far away each other.

Should I buy another external SSD drive and save the backup there? Or do you know some more "elegant" solutions (portable NAS, etc...)?

I don't think there's any magic solution. A removable eSATA SSD will be no safer than a removable USB flash drive (it's the same thing really).

The only safe solution IMHO it to copy the VDI onto local storage before launching the VM - which will use the local copy. Then copy the VDI back to the external drive if you want a portable version.

Or, have N different local VMs, don't bother keeping them strictly in sync, write selected files to a shared folder (which can be your external drive), for copying to the others.

Of course, it should be said that a backup is the only true safety mechanism, and the ideal is a backup which is stored offsite. If you follow suggestion #1 then you get this ideal for free: if you have 3 PCs you work on then you'd have four full copies of the VM at different sites and on the USB stick.

I do something similar, though not with VMs. I frequently zip up a development folder at work on a Friday so I can work on it over the weekend at home, where I have an identical PC. I'm very aware that this gives me 3 recent backups of my work (work, home, USB stick).

mpack wrote:I don't think there's any magic solution. A removable eSATA SSD will be no safer than a removable USB flash drive (it's the same thing really).

The only safe solution IMHO it to copy the VDI onto local storage before launching the VM - which will use the local copy. Then copy the VDI back to the external drive if you want a portable version.

Or, have N different local VMs, don't bother keeping them strictly in sync, write selected files to a shared folder (which can be your external drive), for copying to the others.

Sadly I think you are right. I could write a little script to run each time I connect my external USB drive that copies the whole VM folder from (when I start to work) or to (when I finish to work) external drive. A "little" comfortless but I have no other ideas. Anyway, not so much different from what I'm doing right now (basically the opposite operation).