Fusion Drive & Windows

[nrs111]

Just ordered a Fusion drive 27 iMac. Wondering if Windows would work better if I installed a VM instead of going through Boot Camp? Would it access the SSD that way?

 

[Bear]

Just ordered a Fusion drive 27 iMac. Wondering if Windows would work better if I installed a VM instead of going through Boot Camp? Would it access the SSD that way?

VM software like VMware would use the FUsion Dirve like any other application on OS X.

The question is, do you really need Bootcamp for what you're running in Windows? If you don't need Bootcamp for what you're running, it saves the hassle of rebooting your computer every time you need to run something ib Windows.

 

[nrs111]

Thanks Bear.

Maybe I have a misconception but I don't understand what you mean by "do you really need Bootcamp". I probably didn't describe my original question well. Given the 2 ways to run Windows I was wondering if a VM might work better than BC with a fusion setup. My 2006 iMac really bogged down if I tried running Parallels. I thought maybe with this setup a VM might actually perform better than BC because it could utilize the SS portion of the drive?

 

[Bear]

Thanks Bear.

Maybe I have a misconception but I don't understand what you mean by "do you really need Bootcamp". I probably didn't describe my original question well. Given the 2 ways to run Windows I was wondering if a VM might work better than BC with a fusion setup. My 2006 iMac really bogged down if I tried running Parallels. I thought maybe with this setup a VM might actually perform better than BC because it could utilize the SS portion of the drive?

It all depends on what you're running under Windows. Some software has no real gain being run under Bootcamp, so running it in a VM on a FD would be a performance improvement.

As for me, unless I needed Bootcamp for the software under windows to run decently, I would just run it in a VM even without a fusion drive.

 

[DeltaMac]

Bootcamp doesn't use the SSD portion of a fusion drive, only the spinning hard drive.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5639
From that Boot Camp 5 FAQ:

Do computers that come with a Fusion Drive support Boot Camp?
Yes. Use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition and install Boot Camp. The Windows partition will exist on the hard disk drive, not the Flash drive, and is not part of Fusion Drive Logical Volume Group ...

 

[nrs111]

Bootcamp doesn't use the SSD portion of a fusion drive, only the spinning hard drive.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5639
From that Boot Camp 5 FAQ:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. To take advantage of the SSD portion using Windows I could use a VM. It's kind of reverse logic from my old iMac that was bogged down running Parallels.

Thanks to you and Bear for your help.