VMware Fusion or Parallels?

I've recently taken advantage of Boot Camp.
It's working fine, I would like to be able to access my Mac Partition while downloading torrents on my Windows Partition.
Which product would work best if this is my main need.
Thanks!

They both have trial versions you can download and test to see which you prefer.

I've personally used Fusion and thought it worked great but that's just my opinion. You might like Parallels better. That's why it's best to try them both out.

Regards.

They're both good - but I'd recommend getting plenty of RAM if you haven't already.

VirtualBox. I know that wasn't one of your choices but it's free and does a good job of the basics. I run 6 OS's in it (not all at once mind you) of varying types (Windows, Linux and Solaris) and they all run fine.

Can I ask why you're using Windows to download torrents? Why not use a Mac client?

EDIT: And like macsnail said, make sure you have lots of RAM. I wouldn't recommend having any less than 3GB. You can do it with less but the more the better.

FWIW, I run Fusion on my MacBook with 2 GB of RAM. I use it to run OSX (obv), Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I have not noticed any issues related to performance - I am happy with 2 GB. However, I would not go with less than 2 GB of memory and certainly more memory is never a bad choice. just letting you know that for productivity applications, surfing, email, etc., 2 GB is fine for Fusion or Parallels to do various VMs.

As for which to choose, for a basic windows install on a single user system, they are essentially feature-identical with the main differences being the style of the UI. However, if you are going to branch out to Linux or other operating systems, work in a networked environment or plan to do development work, Fusion is much more extensible and I prefer it. But both are great products.

Cheers

SammySlim said:

I have not noticed any issues related to performance - I am happy with 2 GB. However, I would not go with less than 2 GB of memory and certainly more memory is never a bad choice.

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I ran with 2GB at one point and it did run smooth (all OSes) but I noticed that OS X ran a lot more smoothly when I upgraded to 4 (not to mention the VMs). Plus, if want to run Vista, you need to give the VM at least 1.5GB for it to be bearable.

I like my computer to run fast - I despise slowness. That's why I recommended a min of 3GB.

Agree - you need another MB to run Vista well. I avoided Vista and it worked fine with 2. Certainly more is better, but assuming you avoid Vista, it's not necessary.

Cheers

vansmith said:

Can I ask why you're using Windows to download torrents? Why not use a Mac client?

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I use windows for windows things, like pc games.

iMacKid said:

I use windows for windows things, like pc games.

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Sorry, but are you implying that torrents are a "Windows" thing? Or are you implying that you are downloading Windows games (which I strongly recommend that you don't do)?

vansmith said:

Sorry, but are you implying that torrents are a "Windows" thing? Or are you implying that you are downloading Windows games (which I strongly recommend that you don't do)?

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And to go one further, we don't discuss illegal activity here, like downloading pirated software.