Question about Parallels-Data and Installing Software

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I am undecided whether to go with Parallels or Boot Camp. I am switching from Windows to Mac and have quite a few Windows programs that won't work on Mac so this feature is important to me. I feel Boot Camp is very reliable but yet I'd prefer not to have to reboot to go between Windows and Mac. I don't do 3d rendering or games so the only concern I have with parallels is some hardware not working but I've heard this will be solved by the end of the year. Does windows software under Parallels run any slower than Windows software under Boot Camp?
I am even considering trying them both out by installing both Boot Camp and Parallels. When you run Parallels and install Windows software do you have a separate partition or does it all install in one Mac OS partition on the hard drive? As well, how is data handled? With boot camp I'm concerned about if I can make a 3rd data partition with data that can be shared with both Windows and Mac. Is this what I do with parallels or would all data simply be stored in the Mac OS partition to be used with all programs of each OS. I have a lot of jpgs, mp3's, office files, etc. that I will be using with programs in both OS's.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
20" iMac C2D 2.16ghz, 13" MacBook 2.0ghz, 60gb iPod vid, 1gb nano
parallels creates a virtual hard disk on your computer (doesn't repartition, just has a file the size of your XP partition). Parallels Tools allows you to set up your Mac to have shared folders so that you can access them in XP and save files to OS X and access OS X files.
 

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