Parallels running on 16 GB RAM - M1 Pro?

[Jára Tyky]

Hello,
there is no YouTube video or comparison about Parallels running Windows and MacOS with 16 GB. There is only MaxTech who compare 32 GB vs 64 GB on Parallels or 16GB vs. 32 GB without Parallels :-/


Today is the last day of my return policy when I am able to return M1 Max. I still could not 14 days decide if I should go lower for basic model 16" M1Pro or keep M1Max. I want to have this MacBook for 6-7 years and I do not want to have any slowdowns during the road.
But right now I do not use it so much. I found out that all 2 weeks I turned it on only 4 times. Mostly I just grab for my M1 iPad Pro which I do not have to sit at the table and be extremely catious

I went from MacBook Pro 13" 2018 256 GB where I always regret that I bought only 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB because I could not run Windows properly. Now I want to have two laptop in one - Windows and MacOS system at the same time without limits and upgrades in the future.

But I would like to have better battery as well..MBP2018 was really bad on battery.

So please help me, today I have to decide if spare "some bucks" Thank you, I appreciate it.

 

[CalMin]

I am not quite sure what you are asking.

Parallels runs fine on my M1 Pro with 16GB RAM. I use it for only light work (some Adobe Acrobat stuff and MS Office), but it works just fine. I don't game on this machine - I have an Xbox for that.

There are limitations with a VM. You can't really have the best of both worlds. If you really need Windows for serious work, then you might be better off getting a cheap Windows PC rather than spending a lot of money upgrading your MacBook Pro to run Windows 11 ARM. Windows on ARM has a lot of limitations vs. Intel.

 

[Jára Tyky]

Yes I know. I just like to have Windows running well. I do not need it to work. Only sometimes there is something that I need to run through Windows and I am glad that I can. With MBP 2018 8GB Ram was really not enough so I do not want to do mistake again to buying low specs.

 

[dave72]

If it's any help, I have Parallels on my MBA 2021 with 8GB; runs Windows 11 VM without any issue.

 

[jdlnmia]

I have been running Windows 11 on Parallels on a 2020 13" M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and it is fine. If you only need it for occasional use, you will be OK with a 16GB machine. I will tell you that sometimes my memory pressure goes into the yellow zone when running the VM alongside my Mac apps (Teams, Dropbox, OneDrive, Outlook, Edge, Safari) but it does not slow down one bit.