How to best store data with Parallels

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MarkW - 30 Oct 2006 02:27 GMT

Well I get my first Mac on Tuesday, a C2D MBP. I'll be selling my IBM
thinkpad as I convert from Windows to Mac. Yet there are some Windows
programs I'll use for quite some time so I know I want to run Windows
XP also. I had originally planned on running BootCamp but I play few
games (except for maybe Flight Simulator X which I can install on my
Windows Desktop) but really everything else is stuff like health
software, coin database software, Garmin GPS software, and niche
small programs like that. I heard in the past that Parallels was
incompatible with some hardware such as some programs won't work with
USB ports, etc. but I have heard most of this will be solved by the
end of the year.
Either way I came to the conclusion since I don't have to reboot and
can run Windows side by side with Mac it's the way to go and seems
most Mac users make this choice. What I want to do is ask how should I
best handle data? At home I mostly access data on my main desktop
where I have a lot of hard drive space whether it's videos, music,
movies, office files, etc. This isn't a problem at all and I think
with Parallels I know how to access it both from Windows and Mac. On
my current laptop I have a 2nd partition on the hard drive where I
store data and I sync this fairly often so that when I'm on the go on
vacation, meetings, etc. I have my data with me.
How is the best way to handle that with Parallels? I know that with
Parallels it essentially creates something like a virtual hard drive
as the Windows part of the Mac. Should I store my data files in that
virtual hard drive or simply in a folder on the Mac side. Obviously
what's important is that I can access the data as well as write to and
modify it from both Windows and Mac. Is it even simpler to simply
place that data in a complete separate partition on the hard drive to
access from both Windows and Mac and if so what format would I use to
format the hard drive? Thanks in advance for help.

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Richard Maine - 30 Oct 2006 03:37 GMT

> I know that with
> Parallels it essentially creates something like a virtual hard drive
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> access from both Windows and Mac and if so what format would I use to
> format the hard drive?

No need to fiddle with separate partitions.

There are several options, but the one I'm using is to put most of my
data on the Mac "side". Parallels can mount a shared directory from the
Mac side as a network drive. I do that and then assign it a drive letter
(E:). Then, from XP in Parallels, most of my data is on the E drive.

Advantages:

1. Well, of course it is easy to access from the Mac side also, since
that's where it is.

2. Backups, particularly incremental ones. The virtual drive is all in
one big file in the Mac file system. That file is going to have changes
any time I so much as boot up XP. Thus, it will have to be backed up
every time I do an incremental backup (or SUperDuper "smart" backup). If
I put lots of large data files in it, that means these files will also
be part of what gets backup up with every incremental. With most of my
data files elsewhere, only the basic system stuff and apps are in the
virtual drive.

3. Paranioa. If my XP system completely trashes itself, whether through
the fault of XP or Parallels or something else, my data is still handily
there; I won't need to fuss with restoring it.

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Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

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G.T. - 30 Oct 2006 04:13 GMT

>> I know that with
>> Parallels it essentially creates something like a virtual hard drive
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> data files elsewhere, only the basic system stuff and apps are in the
> virtual drive.

That doesn't sound like an advantage to me.

Greg

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"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons

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Richard Maine - 30 Oct 2006 04:49 GMT

> > There are several options, but the one I'm using is to put most of my
> > data on the Mac "side". Parallels can mount a shared directory from the
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> That doesn't sound like an advantage to me.

Then I didn't explain it well. Let me try a bit more explicitly. With my
current setup, the Parallels file that is my virtual C drive for XP is a
little over 2GB in size. Thus every time I run a SuperDuper smart update
of my backup, it has to recopy that 2 GB because it will be "dirty". The
other 11 GB or so of data is in files that mostly haven't changed, so
the backup copies are still good and don't need to be recopied.

If that 11GB of data was on the Virtual C drive, it would be a 13GB file
instead of a 2GB one that would need to get recopied with every backup,
this taking about 6.5 times as long. That would be quite significant
(and more so if I had more data on my Windows side, but most of the big
stuff is on the Mac side these days).

In both cases, the same data ends up on the backup. I don't get extra
copies for that extra time spent, as this is a mirror type of backup,
rather than separate incrementals. The "smart update" just notices when
the backup already has current copies of files and avoids deleting and
recreating those files on the backup.

If I wanted to redo the backup from scratch (and wait an hour or two), I
always have that option anyway. WIth all the data in a single file, I
have no options - I either back up that file or I don't. None of the
backup tools handily available have granularity at a level smaller than
a whole file.

Signature

Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

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MarkW - 30 Oct 2006 04:43 GMT

Thanks. That helped me a lot and it makes sense. Seems much more
safe and secure to have it on the Mac side. I printed out your post
and will be doing that as soon as I get my MBP.

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / October 2006

How to best store data with Parallels