OSX10.8.5 FUSION and Parallels

I'd be really appreciative if anyone could give feedback.
I have a 2011 MBPro 2 ghz Core i7 with 16 of Ram running 10.8.5. I used to run Snow Leopard and Fusion 3 with Windows 7…lost all that when my MBRo graphics chip/mother board got replaced.
So now I am faced with buying and installing Fusion 6 (the only version now available for purchase) OR Parallels and I will use Windows 7 64 bit (i need that for some specific applications).
My questions are:
1. Which is better Fusion 6 or Parallels? I hear that Fusion sits in one area of the machine and Parallels lodges itself all though the machine, so more problematic if anything goes wrong….true ?
2. Would my hard drive still contain traces of the old Fusion 3 + Windows, how to tell and how to de-install that?…to free up hard disk space? Is that an issue…or do I just ignore it?
4. M previous system Fusion 3+ Windows) was installed by a Mac vendor (now I have moved counties) so if I install it myself: Can I allocate 12 RAM to Fusion 6? If yes, what happens if I power down Fusion on the RAM side, to maximise my MAC's use of RAM? Will my 16 RAM be available, or will Fusion be hogging RAM in the back ground?
5. I will back up my data before Fusion 6 (or Parallels) install, but what happens to my current HD? Will Fusion automatically partition the drive? Lets say I have 80GB free, can I determine how much space to allocate to the VMW?
Thanks

Do you really need a VM?

Why not Boot Camp?

Fusion or Parallels will not partition your HD. If you have previous VMs that were restored from your last HD then you may want to just purge those.

If you have 16GB RAM on the MBP and you want to allocate 12GB to the VM then the VM will use 12GB. Keep in mind that the VM will need 1.5 (or 18GB) of HD space just for a swap file. So when creating the VM you would want to take that into account. Default size for a VM is 40GB.

When the VM is off or suspended the 12GB will be available to the Mac OS.

I personally use VMware versus Parallels simply because I have to work more with VMware products as a whole. I don't care for the unity features that either product offer and I don't use my Windows VMs for games. That said they are both easy to use and maintain and have very similar features and performance metrics.

MacsWork said:

Do you really need a VM?

Why not Boot Camp?

Fusion or Parallels will not partition your HD. If you have previous VMs that were restored from your last HD then you may want to just purge those.

If you have 16GB RAM on the MBP and you want to allocate 12GB to the VM then the VM will use 12GB. Keep in mind that the VM will need 1.5 (or 18GB) of HD space just for a swap file. So when creating the VM you would want to take that into account. Default size for a VM is 40GB.

When the VM is off or suspended the 12GB will be available to the Mac OS.

I personally use VMware versus Parallels simply because I have to work more with VMware products as a whole. I don't care for the unity features that either product offer and I don't use my Windows VMs for games. That said they are both easy to use and maintain and have very similar features and performance metrics.

Click to expand...

Many thanks MacWorks for quick reply;
I've never used Bootcamp….and am used to toggling between Mac and Windows…..I like the ease of use. Is Bootcamp make Windows 7 significantly faster during use, or is it just faster during booting?

How would I 'purge' previous VMs ( basic question but it still stumps me)
thanks !!!

doubleblue said:

I'd be really appreciative if anyone could give feedback.
I have a 2011 MBPro 2 ghz Core i7 with 16 of Ram running 10.8.5. I used to run Snow Leopard and Fusion 3 with Windows 7…lost all that when my MBRo graphics chip/mother board got replaced.
So now I am faced with buying and installing Fusion 6 (the only version now available for purchase) OR Parallels and I will use Windows 7 64 bit (i need that for some specific applications).
My questions are:
1. Which is better Fusion 6 or Parallels?

Click to expand...

Definitely Parallels. Used Fusion for years and just changed - will never go back.
Faster and easier - more integrated into Mac in Coherence mode.

Or, download the free VirtualBox from Oracle and use it instead of either Fusion or Parallels. Not as fancy with all the bells and whistles that the pay versions have, but it works and works well.

VirtualBox Download

Windows does perform better in Boot Camp versus being virtualized. There are type I and type II hypervisors. Fusion and Parallels being type II. This means they require a host OS and run on an application layer. This all requires a good amount of resources. That said, Fusion and Parallels have good performance benchmarks. Type I hypervisors require another conversation.

Boot Camp is less convenient than being able just toggle between OSs for sure. However you said that you wanted to use 12GB of RAM on your VM which suggested to me that the Windows VM would need some resources.

Fusion creates its VMs in the ~/Documents/Virtual Machines directory. If this folder does not exist you have no worries. If it does and there are large files in it you might want to delete them. They are most likely previous VMs created in an older version of Fusion.

Many thanks MacsWork!.

If I decide to use Boot Camp, how does the install process work when I have purchased Windows 7 from the net (no disk)? Do I download the purchase onto an external drive and then connect it before Boot Camp process.

Are there issues with Boot Camp based Windows and multiple monitors? Can I use MBPro plus one Fire wire attached Monitor (or even 2 Monitors via Matrox or some other solution) ?

https://help.apple.com/bootcamp/mac/5.0/help/#apdecf0e4b6-b472-438d-881e-57c230b1c250

As for multiple displays, I would guess anything with a PC driver would work.

many thanks MacsWork and peterskine !
its been very helpful

Last questions:
1) I have a fusion drive 500 GB.
If I installed a SSD 500GB, would it make huge difference to the performance of VMW Fusion 7
2) Will VMW Fusion 7 run well on a NON-retina machine? I have read that Mountain Lion (which I have) is no issue, but would my MacBookPro 8.2 work ok with VMW Fusion 7?
thanks

I started with Parallels but then as time went by I started using Linux more and more and Windows less and less. I got the impression (that may have been wrong and may have changed if it was true) that Parallels was mostly focused on Windows while Fusion was less specific and able to work better with other OSs like Linux. So I switched to Fusion and I have never looked back. No Doubt Parallels has evolved considerably since then and Fusion certainly has.