I/O Performance iMac!

[dollyts1]

Hi,

I have got the iMac top of the line heavy discounted, but just the basic
configuration with the 1TB HDD. So I could not choose a SSD or Fusion option, else the discount would be gone. (25% is something for Apple)

No I have migrated my Air configuration with:

External USB 3.0 SSD, Thunderbolt LaCie little (2x RAID0 HDD).
USB 3.0 High Speed Memory Stick (Where I have my data and share it with the Air).

I am using every day Parallels with Win7. On the Air it is on the internal SSD.
Here I have it external on the Thunderbolt devices.

Sometimes the system is getting laggy. I do not know why and just wondering how I can optimise the system for getting the most performant environment.

Memory and CPU should be ok. Will upgrade to 16GB just in case soon.
2 Cores and 4GB of RAM are dedicated to the VM. I have most of the time 2GB
free.

Do you have any inputs how I can improve my I/O performance to make the best of it?

thanks

 

[RemarkabLee]

Do you really need to dedicate that much RAM for the VM? You can normally get away with a LOT less. Test with 1GB, 2GB then 3G and compare results when performing the same test.

Keep an eye on CPU/Memory and paging out statistics on Windows and OS X for each test. If you see lots of page outs, try to compensate with memory to find a balance. Ideally you'll not want to see ANY page outs for either, but depending on what apps you are using, the only way to avoid this would be to physically add more RAM.

 

[yjchua95]

Hi,

I have got the iMac top of the line heavy discounted, but just the basic
configuration with the 1TB HDD. So I could not choose a SSD or Fusion option, else the discount would be gone. (25% is something for Apple)

No I have migrated my Air configuration with:

External USB 3.0 SSD, Thunderbolt LaCie little (2x RAID0 HDD).
USB 3.0 High Speed Memory Stick (Where I have my data and share it with the Air).

I am using every day Parallels with Win7. On the Air it is on the internal SSD.
Here I have it external on the Thunderbolt devices.

Sometimes the system is getting laggy. I do not know why and just wondering how I can optimise the system for getting the most performant environment.

Memory and CPU should be ok. Will upgrade to 16GB just in case soon.
2 Cores and 4GB of RAM are dedicated to the VM. I have most of the time 2GB
free.

Do you have any inputs how I can improve my I/O performance to make the best of it?

thanks

The HDD is most probably the bottleneck. Having a HDD in the iMac is like buying a Lamborghini and then driving it around a parking lot stuck in first gear.

----------

Do you really need to dedicate that much RAM for the VM? You can normally get away with a LOT less. Test with 1GB, 2GB then 3G and compare results when performing the same test.

Keep an eye on CPU/Memory and paging out statistics on Windows and OS X for each test. If you see lots of page outs, try to compensate with memory to find a balance. Ideally you'll not want to see ANY page outs for either, but depending on what apps you are using, the only way to avoid this would be to physically add more RAM.

I agree. Windows 8.1 runs smoothly in VMware on just 2GB of RAM. Nevertheless, I allocated 4GB to it because I use stuff like Autocad in it.