I am considering installing Parallels 11 on my iMac Retina and Macbook Pro Retina machines to run the MS Office Suite, Quicken, and a few other applications. I assume that the iMac won't see much impact from this activity (both machines are top-of-the-line machines), but I'm unclear on the impact to battery life on the Macbook. Does Parallels always run, meaning that it will drain my battery faster, even when I'm not running one of the Windows applications? Or will my battery drain faster only while I'm actively running one of the Windows applications? I don't mind having resources taken more quickly when I'm running programs, but I don't want to take a constant, significant hit to resources or battery life for the 95% of the time I won't be using a Windows program. Thanks for your insight.
Hello JosephF2, I understand your concern. Parallels Desktop will consume your Battery only when you are using your Virtual Machine. In case if your Virtual Machine is shut down then you can always quit the Parallels Application and it will not be consuming any resources after you have quit the application (when not in use). Also, Parallels Desktop 11 is optimized for better battery life. ·Battery life is extended up to 15% in office and heavy 3D graphics scenarios. ·Travel Mode extends battery life by temporarily shutting down resource-intensive services running in the VM.
