VMware for MBP 13.3 inch

[anantu36]

Hello,

I recently bought a Macbook Pro 13 inch with the following system config (i5 processor 2.5ghz, 4gb RAM, 500 GB HDD). I was thinking of running VMware fusion 5. But my concern is will it slow down my system. I understand if the VMware slows down my MBP when VMware is running, but will it slow down my Mac performance even when the VMware is not running. IF I can install VMware Fusion how much RAM memory should I allocate? Any help is greatly appreciated. If there is another thread which already answers this concern please direct me there, I was not able to find a similar thread that is why I created this. Thanks.

 

[Orlandoech]

You will be fine. When a VM is off, its not in use, thus not taking any system resources.

 

[nitromac]

Running a VM with 4GB of ram might be a struggle. I allocate 4GB to one machine alone. You could only make do with 1 or 2, which isn't much for today's OSes. Unless you're going to run XP.

 

[mac.fanatic]

I have the higher end model of the 13" MBP and I am also wanting to run Windows through VMware. Any advice?

 

[262Runnr]

I have the 2012 13" MBP with 2.9 i7 and before I switched out to a SSD and upgraded the RAM to 16GB, I found Vmware pretty slow and unacceptable to me.....then again, I'm used to having a SSD so I am spoiled.
A SSD makes a HUGE difference.

 

[waynep]

Typically you don't need to allocate 4GB or more to VM's. I am running a Win 7 VM and only have 1.5GB allocated. It runs fine. I only run Quicken for Windows since the Mac version stinks. I also run PAF (personal ancestry file) and a couple other small things.

It all depends on what you really are going to run inside the VM's Unused memory is simply wasted. If you give it 4GB and it never uses more than 2GB then the other 2 is unnecessarily allocated and could be returned to the host.

Now if your VM is going to be heavily used then you may need more memory.

 

[kjlake]

You should not have any problem. When the VM is not running, it does not affect system performance. When it is running, there is a penalty since there is overhead associated with using the hypervisor to run the vm. It varies a little but expect about a 10% performance hit.

I use Fusion 5 on both a rMPB and a 2011 MBA and I get acceptable performance on both. On the MBA, I allocate 1 CPU and 1GB of RAM for a Win 7 x64 VM and it works just fine.

Basically, if you accept the defaults that VMware provides, you should be fine... A little fine tuning can improve performance though.

Good luck

 

[anantu36]

Thanks!

Thank you very much for all your responses. I am just going to use the windows to run Oracle 11g (only some simple queries) occasionally. I need it for one of my courses. I would probably have to use it like 15 times in this semester. So as long as my host OS works normally when the VMware isn't running I am ok with it. Neither do I want my VMware to be superfast or anything. Again, thank you all for your input.