VMware Workstation VM Backups
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I use a lot of VM's in VMware workstation on a laptop and I
- list item am looking for a solution to back them up. Free is prefered but can purchase something.
Also if there is a way to backup changes made to the VM that day without it being powered on would be great.
Here is the scenario, I go to a job and do work with a specific VM and changes are made then when finished I close the VM and power down my laptop to go in my bag.
when I get home I connect the laptop to the port replicator /base station and backups on the host occur to the cloud and to a Synology NAS on my home LAN but the VM's don't get backed up currently.
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If they get powered off, the simplest solution is to just make a copy of their disk images. While powered off, even a simple XCOPY script will do this just fine. Or something like Duplicati.
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@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
but the VM's don't get backed up currently.
That's weird. What causes them to get skipped?
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@scottalanmiller they just are not set to because I was not sure if that file type would work with standard incremental backup software (windows backup) without breaking things (being a dependable recovery point)
Sometimes they are not powered off when at home and work is done and changes are made.
A perfect solution would be something that would back them up daily if they are powered on or off but not sure if anything like that exists as that would normally be 2 different products.
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@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
they just are not set to because I was not sure if that file type would work with standard incremental backup software (windows backup) without breaking things (being a dependable recovery point)
It's just a file. All files work if they are not open.
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@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
Sometimes they are not powered off when at home and work is done and changes are made.
That will cause problems.
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Not used Windows backup but does it need the folder location to be added to backup maybe?
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@scottalanmiller said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
Sometimes they are not powered off when at home and work is done and changes are made.
That will cause problems.
The fact that they are VMware workstation is likely an issue here for running VMs. As Scott said, an powered off VM is just a dumb file, anything that can backup files can backup those files too.
Live is another story. You might have to buy an agent based backup. Perhaps someone knows a low cost/no cost agent based backup.
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@dashrender said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
@scottalanmiller said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
Sometimes they are not powered off when at home and work is done and changes are made.
That will cause problems.
The fact that they are VMware workstation is likely an issue here for running VMs. As Scott said, an powered off VM is just a dumb file, anything that can backup files can backup those files too.
Live is another story. You might have to buy an agent based backup. Perhaps someone knows a low cost/no cost agent based backup.
Or back them up from inside of themselves.
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@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
I use a lot of VM's in VMware workstation on a laptop and I
- list item am looking for a solution to back them up. Free is prefered but can purchase something.
Also if there is a way to backup changes made to the VM that day without it being powered on would be great.
Here is the scenario, I go to a job and do work with a specific VM and changes are made then when finished I close the VM and power down my laptop to go in my bag.
when I get home I connect the laptop to the port replicator /base station and backups on the host occur to the cloud and to a Synology NAS on my home LAN but the VM's don't get backed up currently.
I suggest you do the work and then save the changes to the HOST (the laptop), not the guest VM. Use the shared folders option.
Then you can easily sync the files to onedrive or whatever cloud storage you want and you can backup on the files or copy to your NAS or whatever. It's also easy to email or do whatever you want, since the files are not hidden in your guest VMs.
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@pete-s said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
@eleceng said in VMware Workstation VM Backups:
I use a lot of VM's in VMware workstation on a laptop and I
- list item am looking for a solution to back them up. Free is prefered but can purchase something.
Also if there is a way to backup changes made to the VM that day without it being powered on would be great.
Here is the scenario, I go to a job and do work with a specific VM and changes are made then when finished I close the VM and power down my laptop to go in my bag.
when I get home I connect the laptop to the port replicator /base station and backups on the host occur to the cloud and to a Synology NAS on my home LAN but the VM's don't get backed up currently.
I suggest you do the work and then save the changes to the HOST (the laptop), not the guest VM. Use the shared folders option.
Then you can easily sync the files to onedrive or whatever cloud storage you want and you can backup on the files or copy to your NAS or whatever. It's also easy to email or do whatever you want, since the files are not hidden in your guest VMs.
If you do it the way I suggest above, you don't store anything important in the VMs. You just need to take the occasional backup of the VM itself. Good if you need to move it to another PC or have to restore it without reinstalling everything in it.
One option to do that would be to just copy or backup the directory where the VM resides - when the VMs are shut down.
Another option, would be to just do an export of the VM from vmware.
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You can also run the Veeam ENdpoint agent on the VMs and run the backups.
