Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How many GB do you find it enough to allot to Parallels?
- Thread starter letsudo
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
From what I remember I think I usually let it choose for itself. I think its 60ish gig, although I found that with not much installed it can run up to 25-30 gig easily.
you shouldn't run your drive till its full to the brim, you need some breathing room or it will start to slow right down.
you shouldn't run your drive till its full to the brim, you need some breathing room or it will start to slow right down.
I assume you are talking about storage and not RAM.
When it comes to storage, it really depends on what you use Windows for and what applications you have installed in it. However, Microsoft states the minimum requirements for Win 7 are 16GB for a 32bit OS and 20GB for a 64bit OS.
I have seen some tiny Win 7 installs before, sub 3 GB with Office 2k7 installed, but that takes a bit of tweaking.
Let me guess, are you on a Mac with only a 128GB SSD? Have you considered storing your Win 7 VM on an external hard drive?
While mine is dynamically allocated, I have it set to 64GB. I find it a reasonable size to fit Windows 7 64-bit plus updates and software I need to run and files that get moved around (typically disk images and such).
For RAM, usually 2-4GB, I've got 8GB RAM and an SSD, so it's no issue.
I store the VM on my SSD (256GB rMBP) but I also have it on my external USB 3.0 4TB drive and it's almost as quick there. I had it on my internal hard drive on my 2008 MacBook because I had a 120GB SSD and a 750GB HDD, but that was when you could have two drives
Smallest I'd ever go is 32GB, but you may run out of space trying to install updates or software. I have 14 PCs I built for check in kiosks at a church running 64GB SSDs, 4GB RAM, dual core Pentiums, and they are around half full or slightly over it with just Windows 7, updates, and a small kiosk program.
For RAM, usually 2-4GB, I've got 8GB RAM and an SSD, so it's no issue.
I store the VM on my SSD (256GB rMBP) but I also have it on my external USB 3.0 4TB drive and it's almost as quick there. I had it on my internal hard drive on my 2008 MacBook because I had a 120GB SSD and a 750GB HDD, but that was when you could have two drives
Smallest I'd ever go is 32GB, but you may run out of space trying to install updates or software. I have 14 PCs I built for check in kiosks at a church running 64GB SSDs, 4GB RAM, dual core Pentiums, and they are around half full or slightly over it with just Windows 7, updates, and a small kiosk program.
I have 256 GB SSD and I moved to the external drive all the movie files and yet I have only about 80GB of free space left. It's going to be hard to delete anymore than that because usually movies were the culprit for taking up space.
I looked at Disk Inventory and I'm not sure what's taking so much space.
I think I really regret getting a 256GB one and think I should have gotten the 512GB one.
I looked at Disk Inventory and I'm not sure what's taking so much space.
I think I really regret getting a 256GB one and think I should have gotten the 512GB one.
If you sync multiple email accounts with your Mac, that can use a surprising amount of disk space, especially if you are like me and have messages in an IMAP account going back 5 years.
I don't have a mail account set up.
I wanted to check the disk inventory but it's a bit hard to do because the scaling doesn't work and it seems like you have to buy a four dollar program to scale the retina so that you can see it normally.http://www.quickresapp.com/
I did find that I have a large file of Yosemite that has been lying around. Is Yosemite OX faster? If I install that would I be getting rid of the space used by Yosemite uninstalled at the moment?
I wanted to check the disk inventory but it's a bit hard to do because the scaling doesn't work and it seems like you have to buy a four dollar program to scale the retina so that you can see it normally.http://www.quickresapp.com/
I did find that I have a large file of Yosemite that has been lying around. Is Yosemite OX faster? If I install that would I be getting rid of the space used by Yosemite uninstalled at the moment?
Even with a 1TB SSD in my 15" rMBP, I bought a 960GB Transcend JetDrive external SSD and dedicated it for storing VMs, so that I could run my VMs at full speed on any of my Macs.
I would suggest you buy an external drive (preferably SSD) just for running VMs.
Why did you get the 1TB SSD? I feel like 512GB SSD would be enough.
Wow Transcend Jetdrive is 570 dollars. So you have like 2TB SSD in your rMBP?
I guess that would be very nice but I don't have that kind of money.
How much was it total?
Wow Transcend Jetdrive is 570 dollars. So you have like 2TB SSD in your rMBP?
I guess that would be very nice but I don't have that kind of money.
How much was it total?
It was bloody expensive, but totally worth the cost. I bought a massive 960GB Transcend SSD because I needed the speed.
So 1TB + 960GB = almost 2TB.
I went for the 1TB SSD because I needed the capacity, and it's the only 4-lane SSD in the rMBPs. 512GB and smaller operate on 2 lanes only. The 1TB variants go far faster and perform at 1000MB/s in reads and writes. 512GB performs at around 720-750MB/s in reads and writes. That said, it's impossible to notice the difference.
There's always the option of an SD card like the Transcend JetDrive lite and other vendors, to give you a bit more space. I used one on my MBA (PNY StoreEdge) to hold downloads and other stuff that I could store on lower speed storage. Obviously wouldn't run VMs from it but you could move other stuff onto it to free space on your SSD.
set it up with a dynamic (expanding) disc so it'll take what it needs; whatever you specify then (e.g 20, 30 or 40GB) will be the max it ever grows to rather than what it eats up on day one.
I've a few XP virtual machines that barely scratch 6GB and some Windows 7 and 8 ones running in around 10GB No major tweaking just hibernation disabled and page files limited to a set size.
Really comes down to what's pushing you in direction of a windows VM and how big those particular software packages are.
I only tend to stick whatever software the particular VM needs on there (in my case its acess control apps and their access area and cardholder databases), rather than running an all singin all dancing multipurpose windows box from a VM (office sute, graphics suites, full visual studio installs etc)
I've a few XP virtual machines that barely scratch 6GB and some Windows 7 and 8 ones running in around 10GB No major tweaking just hibernation disabled and page files limited to a set size.
Really comes down to what's pushing you in direction of a windows VM and how big those particular software packages are.
I only tend to stick whatever software the particular VM needs on there (in my case its acess control apps and their access area and cardholder databases), rather than running an all singin all dancing multipurpose windows box from a VM (office sute, graphics suites, full visual studio installs etc)
a 512gb SSD really is needed if you're running Parallel ... external drive is nice but its a battery drain and a takes away from being 100% portable. What you can do is get a Lexar 600x 128gb SD card. I use one in my HP Ultrabook PC that has 128gb. The card stays in as a second hard drive and I see no difference in speed vs the built in ssd drive.