Mac User Running Parallels Needs Some Help
Jul 23, 2014
Hi, everyone. I hope this post is appropriate for this forum. I may also post it on Parallels' forums too, but I haven't yet.
Here's my situation:
I am planning to install the 30-day trial of Storyline sometime this week. I use a Mac and I've used Macs since college — almost 30 years. I've never owned a PC. But today I installed Parallels and Windows 7 Home Premium so I can run Storyline.
So I have some questions about backing up my Windows files and also where I should place my Storyline documents once I start using Storyline. I just don't know enough about Windows to figure out the answers on my own.
I suppose my question about backing up my Windows files and where to save my Storyline documents are related.
I use Time Machine, Apple's built-in software, for back ups of my Mac. I've been using it for years and it works great. I have an external drive that Time Machine backs up to.
After I installed Windows on my Mac with Parallels, Parallels created a "Parallels" folder in my Documents folder on my Mac. The folder is large — 8.8 GB. I don't want Time Machine to back up this folder so I've excluded this folder from Time Machine back ups.
However, I do want to save my Storyline documents in a folder that is backed up by Time Machine. So I'm a little confused where I should save them. I created a Storyline folder in my Mac's Documents folder and I was thinking of saving my Storyline documents there. Will that work, or will I have problems? I know that Mac OS and Windows don't use the exact same underpinnings in their file systems so I wasn't sure if I could save Storyline documents in my Mac's Documents folder.
If I shouldn't save my Storyline documents in my Mac's Documents folder, where can I save them that they'll get backed up by Time Machine?
Thanks!
D.
2 Replies
Just to clarify:
When I'm running Windows 7, Windows sees my Mac's drive as the Y drive. It sees the local drive that was created by Parallels as the C drive. So the C drive is like a real Windows hard drive, which I'm guessing makes that drive more compatible with Windows files than my Y drive.
I could save my Storyline documents to a folder in my C drive — as opposed to the Documents folder on my Y drive — but I don't know how to make Time Machine back up the files on my C drive.
In parallel option you can set it to backup the VM machine but this means it will backup 100+gb every time time machine runs.
I share my desktop and documents with the Mac side (again a parallels setting) and I also work permanently in drop box all of these are native Mac directories that time machine has no problem backing up.
Periodically I will copy my VM and drop it into an are where time machine can back it up, but apart from windows and Storyline I do not store anything in windows so could easily replace my VM if reqiured.
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