How to Use Parallels Desktop Snapshots
Guest blog by Ram Chavali, Parallels Support Team
In the age of cyber-attacks, data leaks and computer viruses, people tend to back up their computers more often. Virtual machines should be backed up from time to time too.
However, it can be difficult and time-consuming to create multiple backups, especially if you’re using an external storage device.
What if I need to create a reserve copy for my virtual machine and I don’t want to mess with the full virtual machine or a Mac backup? The answer is easy: use Parallels Desktop snapshots!
So what is a snapshot? A snapshot in Parallels Desktop is a copy of the virtual machine state at a particular point in time.
Why Would I Use Snapshots?
- Creating snapshots is super easy
- Snapshots can be integrated with Time Machine backup.
- Snapshots are produced quickly and allow your virtual machine to consume less space on your Time Machine storage device.
So, How Do I Make a Snapshot?
It will only take a few clicks. First, go to the Actions menu and choose Take Snapshot:
How many snapshots can you take? There is no limit. However, your virtual machine hard drive will expand with every new snapshot you take:
If something goes wrong, you can also revert to one of the snapshots you took in the past:
You can also automate snapshots by using built-in SmartGuard. With SmartGuard on, you can schedule snapshots to be taken every day, week….whatever period of time you like!
Now, let me go through several user scenarios and describe how snapshots could help in each particular case:
Office Work
You use Parallels Desktop for running Microsoft Office and potentially some custom Windows programs—or, even if you just need Internet Explorer for access to work-related resources. In this scenario, Snapshots could be useful for you when:
- You’ve just completed the project and don’t have time for a full backup.
- You’re installing new programs on Windows. In this case, you could make a snapshot before installing it to make sure your new program doesn’t affect Windows in a bad way.
Development
You use Parallels Desktop for software development and testing. Snapshots could help when:
- You like to save each and every detail of the development progress. This way, you can revert back to any Snapshot to perform changes if something goes wrong.
- You want to build multiple “trees” for different projects. With Snapshots, it’s easy to create separate trees of captured information, allowing you to switchback and forth for verification and edits.
Gaming
Love to play games? You could do the following with Snapshots for gaming:
- If you’re stuck on a tough level, you could continue playing that level over and over again to improve your scores or get past a tough boss.
Graphic Design
Using Photoshop, AutoCAD or similar software in a virtual machine?
- With Parallels Desktop Snapshots, you can take multiple snapshots to save your data or design ideas. Over time, if you feel data is missing or corrupted, it’s then easy to revert the snapshot and retrieve any data you may have lost.
Hopefully this extra info on Snapshots in Parallels Desktop was useful, and don’t forget to follow the Parallels Support team on Twitter!
