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Running Parallels/Fusion on Mac with SSD

mlamb64150

mlamb64150

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 27, 2012
89
48
Isle of Man
Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone had experience in using Parallels or Fusion on an SSD with their iMac?

I'm curious as to whether a 256gb SSD will provide enough space for some minimal windows usage and everyday Mac usage (I have about 150gb taken up on my 500gb HDD on my MBP).

I'm play alot of online poker, hence my need for Windows so my usage on Windows will be fairly light and the Poker clients I use will be saving hand histories in .txt files that I can save to another storage medium after each session.

So, in brief my questions are as follows;

1) Is Mac/Windows duel OS use on an SSD viable?
2) Is it possible to run my Mac OS from the primary SSD drive but install windows to a secondary drive for visualization?

Many thanks!
 
mlamb64150 said:
Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone had experience in using Parallels or Fusion on an SSD with their iMac?

I'm curious as to whether a 256gb SSD will provide enough space for some minimal windows usage and everyday Mac usage (I have about 150gb taken up on my 500gb HDD on my MBP).

I'm play alot of online poker, hence my need for Windows so my usage on Windows will be fairly light and the Poker clients I use will be saving hand histories in .txt files that I can save to another storage medium after each session.

So, in brief my questions are as follows;

1) Is Mac/Windows duel OS use on an SSD viable?
2) Is it possible to run my Mac OS from the primary SSD drive but install windows to a secondary drive for visualization?

Many thanks!
Click to expand...

i have fusion not on a SSD but right now my image is about 10GB with windows 7 and a few small apps if that helps
 
"It depends"

Some notes:
- windows 7 will take up around 10gb for a fairly minimal install, HOWEVER - every patch you install, will keep the old vesions of DLLs. the OS will grow as you patch it, and there is NO SUPPORTED WAY to get rid of the old versions of DLLs on new versions of Windows (i.e., Vista, 7, 2008, 2008R2 - thanks, microsoft!).
- add space for any windows apps you need
- if need be, you can run a VM from an external USB disk

judging by your use, you should be fine.
 
Last edited:
I run Fusion on my MBP with a 512 gig SSD. My windows images are quite large due to products being installed in them.

I am able to run 7 VMs simultaneously in 16 gig of ram, 2 of them are allocated 4 gig of ram, 2 of them 2 gig, and the other 3 allocated 1 gig. Configured like it is my demos run VERY well from the SSD only.

Rather than a 2nd SSD you might consider an external FW800 drive. I use a couple of them for development while not on the road and the performance is quite nice.

$0.02 worth, and of course your mileage may vary.
 
Just for clarification, I was pondering the possibility of an SSD as my primary Mac boot drive and a 2nd HDD for Windows, if that's a viable option.

Generally speaking it sounds like I'll get away with my minimal Windows usage with the primary drive so no harm done.

I was pondering on using Win XP Professional as I have an unused disc/license for this from an old OEM build back in the day (pre-Mac ownership). Are there are issues with using XP Pro on the more up to date versions of Fusion/Parallels ?

Thanks!
 
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