MacBook pro back up
I have purchased a macbook pro 13" retina with 256 Gb hard drive with parallel and windows installed as I -unfortunately- need it for some applications, need external back up and have done some research where no one seems to agree on the solution where you can store (and access) the data for both windows and Mac. The time capsule seems to come close to that solution but from what I have read one is not able to access the Windows data. Any expert advise would be highly appreciated.
Comments
Appreciate your response, that shared folder would have to be where?
You choose a folder located somewhere on the Mac side, it can be anywhere e.g the desktop or your home folder. In Parallels, it'll show up as a shared drive. If you save a file to it, it'll be visible immediately to the Mac side in that folder. Likewise if you move a file into it on the Mac side, It will be available to Parallels.
http://kb.parallels.com/en/4782
that is understood but would mean that my back up is on my macbook, probably the only option is than the network drive you have suggested. Will have a look online and see how that could be set up. So far tx for the support.
If you will use a backup option for your Mac (e.g Time Machine), it will backup Parallels too if you are booting from a disk image. The Mac will backup your Parallels disk image, which contains your entire Windows OS.
The only time you'd need a separate backup option is with Bootcamp.
So you'd have something like:
Mac drive:
OS X
Parallels
Parallels disk image containing Windows and all the files
Shared folder that can easily share files between Mac and Windows
External drive (USB, Network etc):
Time Machine or a clone app like Superduper/Carbon Copy Cloner will copy all of the above to your external
To recover something in Windows, you'd open/restore the Parallels disk image from the external. These disk images sometimes have problems being copied around manually but if you keep files in the shared folder, they get backed up in an easily accessible folder.
A NAS drive is a flexible option for sharing data between Mac and Windows but it's slower for backup. You have USB 3 with the rMBP so you'd be better just getting a portable drive. Try and make sure that you don't put loads of big files inside the virtual machine though because it'll back it up every time you use it. If you keep bigger files in the shared folder, it'll keep the VM small and your backups will go faster.
That is absolutely great support, tx a lot and let you know once done!
More questions; I have been using a PC until now and all my important stuff is on an external which I would need to access from time to time on my MAC. Are there external HD around where I could store this on and have it accessible for both PC and MAC or would I have to partition a drive with one part for MAC and one part for PC.
How to install that shared folder on my MAC.
The Mac will read it but not write to it natively. If you reformatted it for the Mac, it's possible for Windows to read it but not write to it without special software.
Given that you'll be using the Mac most often, it's best to use Mac formatted external drives too. You can't allow the Mac and Windows sides to use an attached external drive at the same time. That's only possible with a NAS.
A few people who switch to the Mac assume they'll be using Windows a lot but the Mac can replace the vast majority of Windows use. You can open Windows files like Word documents, you can open Windows media files. Parallels should only be needed on very rare occasions.
To change the external, you'd copy the files off it, reformat it as a Mac format (HFS+) and copy the files back onto it. If you needed to open a file in Windows, you'd copy it off the external into the shared folder and access it that way.