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VM ware Fusion or Parallells?

Irosaki

Irosaki

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 10, 2010
34
0
Sunderland, UK
Hiya,

when the new MBP refresh happens ill be getting a 17" MBP to replace my current HP laptop, Iv seen Apple say that both VM Fusion and Parallels can be used to run Windows Applications but which is better? as I dont see much difference just by looking at screenshots why do they advertise 2?

thanks.
 
Irosaki said:
Hiya,

when the new MBP refresh happens ill be getting a 17" MBP to replace my current HP laptop, Iv seen Apple say that both VM Fusion and Parallels can be used to run Windows Applications but which is better? as I dont see much difference just by looking at screenshots why do they advertise 2?

thanks.
Click to expand...

Because there are more than two.

But those two are the market leaders in virtualization software for Mac OS X.

MRoogle and Google will you bring many infos on VMWare Fusion vs. Parallels Desktop. Give it a try. Whatever I mean with that.
 
Irosaki said:
Hiya,

when the new MBP refresh happens ill be getting a 17" MBP to replace my current HP laptop, Iv seen Apple say that both VM Fusion and Parallels can be used to run Windows Applications but which is better? as I dont see much difference just by looking at screenshots why do they advertise 2?

thanks.
Click to expand...

VM all the way. I've used it for about two years, now. VM takes advantage of the multi-core processor our Macs have. Also, it's very easy to use. For example, let's say you get a virus on windows on your Mac. All you have to do, if you want to restore, is find the VM icon and drop it in the trash!

Cheers,

Habitus :apple:
 
Irosaki said:
Hiya,

when the new MBP refresh happens ill be getting a 17" MBP to replace my current HP laptop, Iv seen Apple say that both VM Fusion and Parallels can be used to run Windows Applications but which is better? as I dont see much difference just by looking at screenshots why do they advertise 2?

thanks.
Click to expand...

Try Sun's "Virtual Box" it's free. Or some Windows softwre runs under Wine withou need for Windows.

I like VMware bcause it runs on other non-mac hosts (linux) so I can move my VM images between the Mac and Linux
 
Habitus said:
VM all the way. I've used it for about two years, now. VM takes advantage of the multi-core processor our Macs have. Also, it's very easy to use. For example, let's say you get a virus on windows on your Mac. All you have to do, if you want to restore, is find the VM icon and drop it in the trash!

Cheers,

Habitus :apple:
Click to expand...

Actually Parallels lets you take advantage of the multi-core more effectively than VMWare Fusion. Under Fusion, you can only allocate 4 Cores to a VM, under Parallels you get up to 8 Cores.

But regardless, both products have good features.
 
ayeying said:
Actually Parallels lets you take advantage of the multi-core more effectively than VMWare Fusion. Under Fusion, you can only allocate 4 Cores to a VM, under Parallels you get up to 8 Cores.

But regardless, both products have good features.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't always the case, right? I really enjoy how easy VM is, though.

Habitus :apple:
 
Personally I like vmware because of the superior support and stability of the vmware. Parallels has an unfortunate track record of being unstable and buggy at times. I've used it for quite a while and ran into lots of blue screens and Kernel Panics. Where as I've yet to get a Kernel Panic with vmware and only incurred one BSOD.
 
I have come across VMware at work where some of the corporate mission-critical servers were running virtual machines from VMware. That definitely inspired a bit of confidence in the company. I've been very happy with the Fusion on my MBPs. I also just upgraded to version 3.
 
Habitus said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't always the case, right? I really enjoy how easy VM is, though.

Habitus :apple:
Click to expand...

It started off with VMWare Fusion getting 64-bit and 2 Core allocation first. Then Parallels got 2 Core allocation also. As it progressed, Parallels got 64-bit and 4 core allocation. VMWare Fusion stuck with 2 Core until later on where they got 4 core also. Now Parallels upped to 8 Core allocation while VMWare Fusion is still stuck at 4.

For stability, VMWare Fusion wins. For 3D Performance, Parallels wins.
 
Talking about VMWare & Parallels.. one doubt:

If you run a VM from a Bootcamp partition, the performance is good, bad or the same? I remember reading about bad performance over the Bootcamp partition in the earlier version of both app... but I was wondering if they improved that or it's the same.

Do you know guys?

Tks
 
gguerini said:
Talking about VMWare & Parallels.. one doubt:

If you run a VM from a Bootcamp partition, the performance is good, bad or the same? I remember reading about bad performance over the Bootcamp partition in the earlier version of both app... but I was wondering if they improved that or it's the same.

Do you know guys?

Tks
Click to expand...

Never mind guys! I googled and found the result: do not run a VM from a Bootcamp partition. :) It's slower..
 
I've used VMWare, Parallels, and VirtualBox recently.

Parallels has impressive features, but crushes my puny Mac Mini when using Windows XP. The startup time is horrible due to the disk speed.

VMWare also has a nice feature set, but it too crushes my puny Mac Mini when using Windows XP. The startup time was a lot faster than Parallels, but the Windows programs would frequently pause/freeze as the disk was hit.

VirtualBox has a more limited feature set, but it didn't crush my Mac Mini with slow startups or program freezes. The install process was less than smooth using my really old scratched install disk, but it worked well the second time. The program was the only one I could use to actually run Windows XP for any length of time on my old Mac Mini.
 
Parallels 5.

Why? Because I had the same dilemma and after doing research there just isn't enough evidence to pick one over the other based on performance. So when I was in the Apple store I used the "coin flip" app on my iPhone to make the decision.

So Parallels 5 FTW!!!
 
your vm's will run faster if you don't use fixed size images rather than expanding. Also I think they will run much faster in bootcamp partitions.
 
Parallels 5 works much snappier for me when compared to VMWare. Just my 2 cents.
Try them both out (they both offer demo periods), and see for yourself.
 
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