Getting a new Mini-Mac! Bootcamp or parrallells with fusion drive?

Fusion drive will only operate under OSX or Parallels. Under Bootcamp, Windows can only be installed on the harddrive.

There are detailed reviews of Fusion and Parallels online. I think that Ars Technica has published reviews on both programs.

Do a Google search. There are differences between the programs. Parallels is currently available for $30. Details at Dealmac.com.

If I remember correctly there is a free copy of "Take Control of VMWare Fusion." It is an excellent guide that details the installation and configuration options of Fusion.

You will need a copy of Windows. Make sure that whatever software you want to run is compatible with the Windows version that you want to use. An OEM DVD of Windows purchased from Newegg.com is usually the cheapest option.

Mac mini

You can point Parallels to the Bootcamp partition so that changes made when using Parallels will be seen when using the Bootcamp partition and vice versa.

Boot camp would just be too much of an inconvenience for me. I use VMWare Fusion (I also use Parallels on my work iMac and it's fine; I chose VMWare because I was already using VMWare Workstation on Windows and had a bunch of VMs built already. Both seem to be very useful products). I suppose Boot Camp might be useful for something very hardware/graphics intensive like gaming, but for anything short of that virtual is the way to go.

My experience is the opposite. I have tried VirtulaBox, CrossOver, Fusion and Parallels, but have recently settled on BootCamp/Windows 7 Pro on my 2009 Mac Mini.

I would much prefer to sacrifice the convenience of virtualisation compared to the brisk/native speeds facilitated by BootCamp.

SpinalTap said:

My experience is the opposite. I have tried VirtulaBox, CrossOver, Fusion and Parallels, but have recently settled on BootCamp/Windows 7 Pro on my 2009 Mac Mini.

I would much prefer to sacrifice the convenience of virtualisation compared to the brisk/native speeds facilitated by BootCamp.

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Bootcamp will always be faster, but under Parallels my 2012 Mac Mini performs very well, and as one of my uses is rendering of video, Bootcamp isn't practical.

If you want to use Fusion or Parallels max-out your RAM. 8GB is the minimum and more is better, particularly if you use RAM-hungry software.

I set-up a friend's medical practice running Fusion/Windows 7 on a 2010 Mac Mini. The installation was relatively painless; only a default Windows setting gave me grief when trying to install the electronic health records software (Amazing Charts). Basically, Fusion installs everything you need including anti-virus software with a free one-year subscription.

TidBITS offers a free "Take Control of VMWare Fusion 3" ebook that was very helpful in getting things set-up properly. It was the first time that I configured such a demanding VM and I doubt that it would have gone as well without the ebook. There are various tips on how to configure the settings that I would not know how to do otherwise.

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/vmware-fusion-3

VirtualBox.....it's FREE!!!!

Just remember, according to the Apple site, you can only partition a Fusion drive once, so keep that in mind when you partition the drive, whatever software you use.

I have only used bootcamp on a 2009 MBP and with 8gb of ram and no SSD VMs are pretty sluggish. However, on my Mini with a 3rd party SSD and 16g of ram VMs are pretty snappy. The VM loads up very quickly (VMware Fusion btw) and is quick. I have tried Windows 8 VMs and some Linux distros running on it. Bootcamp becomes a pain later on if you ever decide you need more space and the bootcamp partition was initially made too large (what I ended up running into). Not sure how it would work with the fusion drive as the best bet would be to have the VM load from the SSD, but since fusion is automated I'm not sure if it would get moved to the spindle drive or not. Which is why I like to keep my drives separate so I can decide what to put where and symlink folders as needed.