Using parallels via USB stick

Hello guys!

I am using parallels on my rMBP (2014 mid) which works fluently, since it is installed on my SSD. As my SSD's capacity is only 128 GB I am planning to buy an USB stick (capacity of 64GB for instance), and installing Windows on that - especially because I am not using Windows every day -, resulting in freeing up space on my SSD. My question about this is if the USB's speed is fast enough to satisfy the needs of Windows, for using CAD softwares or even games? Another question about this: is an USB stick reliable enough to store a whole operation system on it without the chance of losing data from a day to another?
PS.: I have searched for such topics on this forum with no success, but if you know any other topic that might be useful for me, please share that with me.

Many thanks in advance!

 

Hello,
I understand that you are looking forward to use Windows virtual machine from an external drive. Please refer to this knowledge based article to know all about the supported speed of virtual machines from different USB devices. You also had a question regarding the reliability of using Windows from a USB stick. My personal suggestion will be to avoid that if you are planning to use a flash drive or a pendrive with approximately 64GB space in it. In stead of that, using an external storage device would be a lot better.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

 

i've tried this. does it work? yes. does it work well? not really.

windows was pretty slow. just the nature of using the flash drive - they're not known for speed. also tried using the sd card slot - no better.

i have used an external usb drive and it works better. no complaints, but i don't do any gaming. just software development. it's a little slower to start up but once it's running pretty decent.

 

Yes, I agree. The speed with which you can access your virtual machine differs from the type of external device we are using. Having an entire virtual machine on a flash drive or sd card is not the best option to choose.
Please review the type of drives that will show the best performance (in decreasing order) :

• Flash Drive on Thunderbolt
• Flash Drive on USB 3.0
• Flash Drive on USB 2.0
• Rotational Drive on Thunderbolt
• Rotational Drive on USB 3.0
• Rotational Drive on USB 2.0