Parallels 8 Resources

Benhama said:

I am looking at buying either a new iMac or Mac Mini, with 16gb RAM minimum. leaning on the side of the Mac Mini, as I fear the new iMacs may be difficult to service in the future.

When using Parallels 8 with a Mac I understand that you need to allocate it a certain amount of resources in order to run Windows 7. May I ask if Parallels / Windows only uses these resources when a particular Windows program is opened or does it effectively permantly use the resources on start up? The programs I wish to use are very lightweight, namely Decoplanner (Diving Decompression software) and Microsoft Money.

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I just purchased the mac mini and installed Parallels 8 for work purposes. It will allocate a certain amount of HD space for windows (which I installed on a 3TB external hard drive, so it’s negligible), but it’s expandable memory. For example, if you allocate 32GB to it, it will take up only the amount it needs for actual windows installation and the installation of the programs you need, say 8 to 12 GB. It will thereafter expand if it needs to, to a max of 32GB, where it will stop and give you a “not enough space” error.

BTW, I have 8GB of RAM and that's plenty; no hiccups whatsoever. I understand the desire to max it out, though.