Will a 4 gig machine work?

My primary traveling computer is a MacBook Pro with 8 gigs of memory. When I am using it in business (both Mac and PC applications), I am usually a long way from home and can't afford to not have it work. I have been taking a very old, unreliable and heavy Pc laptop with me so I have a critical backup but am looking to buy a new MacBook Air but don't want to spend the extra money for the additional 4 gigs of memory (it comes standard with 4 gigs). There is only one small Windows app I need to run and am wondering if the standard 4 gig configuration will suffice?

 

Hello Chuck,
Yes, you can assign only 2GB for the Windows virtual machine which is enough for it to work ! and 4GB Mac book air is sufficient to run your Windows and Mac with out any issues. Refer to this article to assign RAM to the virtual machine.

 

Thanks for the timely response. Perfect. I am running Parallels on my MacBook Pro and love it. I stumbled a bit getting started but your support was first rate. I will be downloading another copy once my MacBook Air shows up. Much appreciated!!

 

Thank you chuck, feel free to reach out for any further assistance with Parallels!

 

Sorry to disagree, I hope I'm not too late, but I don't recommend getting an MBA with just 4 GB, and I'm not speaking just because of running Parallels, but in general for future proofing it. First because you'll not be able to upgrade it later, the RAM is soldered so the RAM you get out of the factory is all it will ever have, secondly, 8 GB costs more but it's just about 10% of the overall price, thirdly, on the OS X side, running a browser with medium to many tabs open will easily exhaust the 2 GB left (Windows is occupying the other 2 GB).

Finally, and this is very important, the onboard Intel HD 6000 graphics have a VRAM of 1.5 GB but it's shared memory, meaning it uses the RAM, so, out of those 4 GB you have to subtract whatever the GPU is requiring at the moment.

The system requirements for Parallels state 4 GB RAM as minimum but recommend 8 GB and that's not even taking into account GPU shared memory: http://kb.parallels.com/en/123276

In summary, considering shared memory, the inability to upgrade the RAM later and the fact that it doesn't cost much (relatively speaking). Get the 8 GB, that's my recommendation.

 

I personally run 2 Windows 7 VMs simultaneously on MBA 2011 with 4 GB on board (debugging one VM from another). Mac fan is running crazy but I have no issues. Win10 also works fluently. But, when I run VM I have only Safari running on Mac side. I tried to launch Photoshop at the same time - it was bad idea.

Anyway, I'd prefer paying another 10% of overall price rather then limit myself and turn off VM every time I want to launch Photoshop on Mac.