When I switched from my Dell to a MacBook Pro, I knew that I still have to retain some type of Windows capability, especially the product that I develop predominately runs on Windows due to its connectivity with a Windows database, Microsoft SQL Server. There were three options at the time: VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and dual booting with Bootcamp. The last option is really a non-starter, since it is way too cumbersome to reboot when I have to switch OS. <\/p>\n
So it boiled down to a choice between the two solutions involving virtual machines. I started out with VMWare Fusion, because our company had experience with VMWare on Windows and we had a few VMWare virtual machines already built. I went ahead and bought version 2. <\/p>\n
The best way to sum up my experience with version 2 is that running it made my MacBook feel sluggish. The disk I\/O read and write speeds were very slow. I ran some non-scientific benchmarks and they were sometimes five times as slow as native reads and writes from Mac OS X. Since I use the VM for the specific purpose of running a database, this is somewhat problematic. To compound the disk I\/O issue, it gets worst after the VM is suspended. It almost seems like the VM never fully wakes up. Restarting the VM from suspension also took a very long time. Due to these irritating characteristics, I ended up shutting down the VM completely, and restarting the VM frequently, countering the convenience that I would have enjoyed with the Mac\u2019s very nicely implemented lid-closing suspend feature. I also do a lot of presentations and demonstrations. Of course during the demonstration, I would plug my MacBook into a projector. All this worked fine, until I unplug the projector. Going from mirrored displays and back to a single display caused VMWare to misbehave. I sometimes get a black LCD screen, or my computer just freezes. Either of these two situation forces me to bounce the power button. <\/p>\n
Shared folders in VMWare also caused me endless headaches. Finally, I thought my prayers were answered when VMWare version 3 came out. It got a little better. I\/O speeds improved somewhat, but the basic instabilities still existed. I then came across this article<\/a> and found that Parallels\u2019 I\/O performance is significantly better. After downloading a trial version of Parallels Desktop 5, I started by converting my VM. This procedure was effortless and pain free. Sensing good karma already. <\/p>\n When I started the VM with Parallels, I was pleasantly surprised how fast it started up. Disk I\/O was fabulous, very close to native speeds. The most enjoyable experience is that I can now close the lid of my MacBook and open it up again without having my computer feel sluggish. Parallels simply does a phenomenal job when it comes to start, suspend, and restarting the VM. It is just a pleasure to work with! No more issues when displays are mirrored with a projector, or viewing the VM in full screen mode, and the other working mode does not bog down my OS X experience. Everything is not rosy though. I did find an issue with copy and paste, but can be quickly remedied by simply quitting Parallels and re-launching again. Given Parallels\u2019 fast performance in stopping and starting VM\u2019s, I rather deal with this one<\/strong> issue discovered in more than 10 days of putting Parallels through its paces, than the litany of issues previously described with VMWare Fusion. In summary, my trial ended yesterday and I bought my Parallels license. Goodbye VMWare Fusion (off of my hard drive for good).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I switched from my Dell to a MacBook Pro, I knew that I still have to retain some type of Windows capability, especially the product that I develop predominately runs on Windows due to its connectivity with a Windows database, Microsoft SQL Server. There were three options at the time: VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and … Continue reading “Why I Ended Up with Parallels”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-justmigrated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V6i8-r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lufamily.ca\/kang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}