running vm on external drive (usb 2.0)

Discussion in 'Mac mini' started by c55, Jul 2, 2015.

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  1. c55, Jul 2, 2015

    c55 macrumors regular

    c55

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    #1
    How do virtual machines do on external drives with the mac mini 2011? it has usb 2.0. I would only be running windows 10 preview, no heavy apps just web browsing and testing out a couple of things. I am running the win 10 preview in virtualbox on my iMac right now but it's all on the main hard drive not external so not sure if it would make a huge performance impact or not.
     
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  2. yjchua95, Jul 2, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2015

    yjchua95 macrumors 604

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    #2
    Really really badly, if it's over USB 2.0. Don't even think about it.

    If it's on a USB 3 (with UASP support) drive over a USB 3 port, the performance is pretty decent.
     
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  3. dkl, Jul 3, 2015

    dkl macrumors member

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    #3
    Don't bother with USB 2.
     
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  4. ixxx69, Jul 3, 2015

    ixxx69 macrumors 65816

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    #4
    If it's really just to test/check some things out on W10, then usb2 will do in a pinch, it'll just be slow to get going. It would be pretty frustrating for regular use.
     
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  5. MRrainer, Jul 3, 2015

    MRrainer macrumors 65816

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    #5
    I certainly wouldn't run W10.
    But if you have something very low on I/O, it should be OK-ish.
    E.g. things like a Live-CD (if the ISO is on the main hard-disk, of course) or related stuff like pfSense, which can run read-only from an USB-stick.
     
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