Technical ?, Hard drive, SSD, Parrelels and Win7??

[MikeSantor]

Heres the deal:

On the Blackbook I had just before I got this MBP (a month ago) I had XP dual booted and it worked great. Now I need to be able to go back and forth more easily between Windows and OS X for work so Im about to run grab a copy of parallels 5 and Win7.

Current set up:
09 MPB
4gigs RAM
intel 80gig SSD boot drive.
Hitachi 7k500 HDD

-How exactly does Parallels Work as a virtual machine?
Does it create a permanent partition that it runs on every time you start the virtual machine or does it do this on the fly every time parallels is started?

If it DOES create a virtual partition every time its ran does the virtual partition run entirely in RAM or does it write to the HDD?

If it DOES create a virtual partition and write to the HDD can parallels and Win7 be installed on the HDD instead of the SSD? Reason I ask is I have had some programs tell me that they HAVE to be installed on the boot drive. the boot drive being the SSD.

I don't want to install everything on the SSD if there is going to be a lot of writing and erasing for all the obvious reasons with the SSD. BUT, that being said, if I did put everything on the SSD, would Win7 and the TRIM command take care of all the writing and deleting that parallels will do assuming that is how it works ( based on the questions I asked above?)

Just wondering if anyone with an SSD AND HDD had any tid bits on how they did this.

 

[MrMyth]

I'm running your setup, but with Fusion. I've used Parallels in the past.

there are no partitions, each piece of software creates a file that acts as a virtual hard drive. They both create the file in your Documents directory. You can copy the file anywhere you wish and run it from there. I have my Win7 file on the Scorpio Blue in the optical bay and it runs fine.

I moved mine after creating the VM, so you may have to move the file after installation. I can't recall if you can choose the directory for the VM file upon creation.

Fusion for me is installed on the SSD, but any writing happens on the HDD.

Because the software uses virtual hard drives, it has no direct access to your disks and the TRIM command does not apply. Win7 (or any other versions of Windows) will not see your actual drives and will only see the virtual machine.

 

[MikeSantor]

I'm running your setup, but with Fusion. I've used Parallels in the past.

there are no partitions, each piece of software creates a file that acts as a virtual hard drive. They both create the file in your Documents directory. You can copy the file anywhere you wish and run it from there. I have my Win7 file on the Scorpio Blue in the optical bay and it runs fine.

I moved mine after creating the VM, so you may have to move the file after installation. I can't recall if you can choose the directory for the VM file upon creation.

Fusion for me is installed on the SSD, but any writing happens on the HDD.

Because the software uses virtual hard drives, it has no direct access to your disks and the TRIM command does not apply. Win7 (or any other versions of Windows) will not see your actual drives and will only see the virtual machine.

So since the only file written is the one when you first run the install, im assuming anything that is created and saved such as word documents is saved in that same folder?

Also, How much Ram are you running Myth? I have 4 gigs but was contemplating upping it to 8 with parallels. How does your machine run with fusion?

 

[MrMyth]

So since the only file written is the one when you first run the install, im assuming anything that is created and saved such as word documents is saved in that same folder?

Also, How much Ram are you running Myth? I have 4 gigs but was contemplating upping it to 8 with parallels. How does your machine run with fusion?

4 GB. I allocate 1.5 to the VM with one processor. this is enough to run outlook, IE, onenote, zune software, resource monitor, groupwise, and crystal reports simultaneously. two processors makes the audio playback jerky.

whatever you do in windows is contained within the virtual hard drive file, unless you save to a shared folder on the mac. think of that file as a physical hard drive, windows will.
I use my MBP like this 8 hours a day with no drop in my productivity. I even run windows with Aero.