Parallels speed

[sepandee]

For those of you who run and work with windows on OS X through Parallels, can you comment on the speed? My current macbook gets relatively slow when I run windows on it, but this is an old macbook and it gets relatively slow when I run anything on it

I'm just wondering because I want to buy my dad a refurbished macbook (early 2011), but he needs to use windows (internet explorer, more precisely) for his work and can't have it slowed down.

Thanks

 

[rocknblogger]

I have a 2010 MacBook Pro. If I know I'm going to be using my Windows apps for an extended period of time I shut down almost every Mac app and I have no problems. If I leave a lot of apps running then it can get a bit laggy.

Keep in mind that upgraded to 8GB's of ram. There's also a setting in parallels that automatically allocates more resources to the OS that's active. So if I'm using a Mac app I get more resources allocated to OSX and vise versa.

Your other option is to install Windows via bootcamp if your dad will use one or the other.

In either case I don't think he'll have a problem with the 2011 MBP.

I would recommend though that you upgrade the ram. Don't get it from Apple as you can get it at a fraction of the cost from a number of different sources on the Internet. And it's very easy to install, no more than about ten minutes.