x2.
The other nice thing is that you don't have to leave that file on your Air's SSD. Windows will definitely run faster if you do (because SSDs are amazingly fast), but if you're only going to use Windows every now and then, buy a $99 external USB3 drive, and put your Windows virtual machine file on it. You'll notice a Finder window in the attached screen shot that shows I have eleven different Window machines on my Lacie external drive, varying in size from 3.9GB to 50GB+.
Recently purchased Parallels 8 and Win7, to add to my current setup for non-intensive use like Office2010, etc. Have yet to install either, as I am still deciding if I want to bother with Boot Camp at all.
If I'm def planning on both Boot Camp and VM, does it matter which is installed/activated first? If I do both, I already anticipate having to call in the second Win7 activation. While this isn't a issue for me, I might also avoid the trouble altogether by just not doing Boot Camp.
If I could limit the Win7 OS files to no more than 30GB or so on my SSD, I wouldn't mind keeping Win7 on it. It should def make Win snappier. I normally save most of my working files to my usb external (old internal HDD before SSD). But you make an appealing suggestion to keep the VM on an external drive. Idk much about virtual machines to start with, but I previously assumed the VM had to be on an internal drive.
Using Parallels, would I be able to move the VM to an external drive. Would I install Win7 in Parallels on the SSD first, then move the Win7 files (?) to the external drive? I assume the external would have to be formatted for Win? Or could I use my current external a drive (the old HDD) with both Win & Mac files on it?