External HD Bootcamp on MBA

[jonomo]

Hello..
Just got MBA.. the Cheapo 11" model.. and I wanna run Bootcamp once in a while to do things (games, office, etc.)

I've read the forums and it looks like running bootcamp on an external drive is out of the question.. but can I install OSX on an external drive, and then install a virtualization software like Parallels and then install Windows and run it off that?

I'm wondering if I'll have significant performance issues.. I won't be running any extensive games.. just some casual stuff from time to time and a Microsoft Office PC version for the times things just don't seem to be compatible with Mac Office...

Best,
J

 

[ZipZap]

You will be constrained by the through-put of USB with an external drive VM.

That said, you could put a VM instance on an external drive and run it from there.

Alternately just store the VM on the external, and move it to the SSD when you need it.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate on a 9 gig VM using 512K of memory...so you may not need as much SSD space as you think.

Of course, gaming will change this pretty fast.

 

[jonomo]

You will be constrained by the through-put of USB with an external drive VM.

That said, you could put a VM instance on an external drive and run it from there.

Alternately just store the VM on the external, and move it to the SSD when you need it.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate on a 9 gig VM using 512K of memory...so you may not need as much SSD space as you think.

Of course, gaming will change this pretty fast.

Would it be better t o try and do this off of a memory stick? How many gigs would I need?

By games I'm talking about mostly casual games with small clients and low GPU usage...

 

[jonomo]

Would it be better t o try and do this off of a memory stick? How many gigs would I need?

By games I'm talking about mostly casual games with small clients and low GPU usage...

I'm gonna bump...

Would it be possible to do this from an external thumb drive about 16 gigs in size?

 

[ZipZap]

Would it be better t o try and do this off of a memory stick? How many gigs would I need?

By games I'm talking about mostly casual games with small clients and low GPU usage...

Memory stick is still USB so it would still be contrained and probably not perform well.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate in 11 gig as I recall using Parallels. Not a whole lot of space. You'll need much more if you will run games.

 

[Darklandman]

You could install win7 on the ssd then all files on external drive. I beleive you can slim win7 down to only use about 7 gigs.