I admit, I'm confused. I bought Parallels for a new Macbook. I have 1.5GB Ram and an 80GB hard drive. I figure Windows and applications plus data will use about 30gb. Yet I see the default "size" of the drive for Windows is 8GB. That wouldn't hold very much stuff. What size does everyone use? Can someone suggest some setting sizes that work well.
Yeah, the default is 8GB because that is the suggested amount. From what I read and understand from using the program myself, Parallels will increase the size of your HD if necessary. And the XP OS doesn't take up near as much room as you think it will. I myself have several Windows programs installed, including APS CS3, and I still haven't reached the 8GB yet.
If you think your installation will require 30 GB then you should make the disk bigger than that, or use more than one virtual disk. Expanding disks use very little space beyond the amount actually required for the files you create on them so there is very little reason to make them too small. They will grow with time as files are added and deleted, but Parallels Compressor will recover the unused space and make the .hdd file smaller. I'd suggest making a backup copy of any .hdd file you are compressing before you compress it since I've experienced a few compressor failures (not running to completion and corrupting the .hdd). I haven't tracked down whether this is Compressor or something else on my system since the problems are infrequent and it's low on my priority list.
