Best way to run Windows under MacOS?

[Giuanniello]

Long story short,

I need a windows machine to program some ham radio and to run a dedicated software, tried with Parallels and Windows XP but timeout errors due to serial port emulation/connection, I am quite tired of it, was thinking of getting a small PC either in the form of a laptop or something equivalent to a Mac Mini since I have a screen already but would like to first give it another go with my iMac 2009 running Sierra or MacBookPro 2011 running ElCapitan, any other way to run Windows which is more straightforward?

Was thinking of BootCamp but dunno if I have to partition the drive (which I won't do if it has to be formatted) or if it can be done in a non destructive way.

Suggestions welcome

Thank you

 

[KGB7]

As far as i know and I'm still learning. Boot camp won't wipe your entire drive, just the partitioned space you have allocated for Windows. The rest of the OSX files are safe and the partition they are located on.

 

[Giuanniello]

Thank you for your reply, do you think that my 2009 iMac with an i7 CPU and 8GB RAM might efficiently run Windows 10 or do you advise on an older version?

Grazie

 

[flyinmac]

Thank you for your reply, do you think that my 2009 iMac with an i7 CPU and 8GB RAM might efficiently run Windows 10 or do you advise on an older version?

Grazie

I have used Windows 10 64-BIT quite efficiently on much much older hardware. You'll be fine.

Currently I have Windows 10 Pro 64-BIT running on 3 old core2duo machines. And my 2006 Mac Pro.

I've also run it on old Pentium 4 machines and it felt quite fast. Likewise I've even run it very well on an old AMD Athlon 64.

So I would not worry in the slightest if you're putting it on an i7.

The only real bottleneck might be the slow spinning hard drives that Apple likes. I never use anything slower than a 7200 RPM spinner, and haven't since around 1999. But Apple likes 5400 RPM spinners, which can make a Mac feel sluggish. I find it quite aggravating when I have to do something on someone else's Mac.

But, your CPU and RAM are plenty sufficient for Windows 10.

 

[Giuanniello]

I had the 1TB spinning drive changed for a 500GB SSD so that should not be an issue, I will only have to free up some space to make room for Windows and then start the process.

Thank you for your input

 

[flyinmac]

I had the 1TB spinning drive changed for a 500GB SSD so that should not be an issue, I will only have to free up some space to make room for Windows and then start the process.

Thank you for your input

Sounds like you are set up good. Should perform very nicely. Those SSD drives can make the machines feel very smooth.