Can I unplug external SSD where the vm image is in after I pause the VM?

M

mdz

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My vm size is growing, eating up all my mac storage(256GB). Now I'm planning to get a external SSD specially for my VM, so my MAC will have a relief...
Currently I use the 'pause' function quite a lot so that I can quickly start using and stop using my windows. Why don't just leave it? My windows is running a few CPU intensive long running service, I don't want to slow down my mac while i'm not on windows.
So now the question comes... What if I pause the vm unplug the external SSD, close the lip and move to another location and when I want to work on win, I plug in external SSD again and resume the VM, will this work? or it will cause the VM to crash?
Thanks for any advices.
 
mdz said:
My vm size is growing, eating up all my mac storage(256GB). Now I'm planning to get a external SSD specially for my VM, so my MAC will have a relief...
Currently I use the 'pause' function quite a lot so that I can quickly start using and stop using my windows. Why don't just leave it? My windows is running a few CPU intensive long running service, I don't want to slow down my mac while i'm not on windows.
So now the question comes... What if I pause the vm unplug the external SSD, close the lip and move to another location and when I want to work on win, I plug in external SSD again and resume the VM, will this work? or it will cause the VM to crash?
Thanks for any advices.
Click to expand...
Hi mdz. Its highly recommended that you shut down the virtual machine properly by selecting Actions (from the Mac menu bar) -> Shut down before disconnecting the external hard disk in which the virtual machine is stored. If it is not shut down properly, there is a high chance for the operating system files to get corrupt.
 
Sathiya@Parallels said:
Hi mdz. Its highly recommended that you shut down the virtual machine properly by selecting Actions (from the Mac menu bar) -> Shut down before disconnecting the external hard disk in which the virtual machine is stored. If it is not shut down properly, there is a high chance for the operating system files to get corrupt.
Click to expand...
How about suspend? Shut down and restart is a big effort since there are quite some development tools i need to open and configure everytime i boot win. Thanks.
 
mdz said:
How about suspend? Shut down and restart is a big effort since there are quite some development tools i need to open and configure everytime i boot win. Thanks.
Click to expand...
@Sathiya@Parallels is being very precautious, I would say that there is a chance to lose Windows boot state but not so high. You can use Suspend option but make sure to wait until it will be suspended (until we save Windows RAM to file within virtual machine bundle) and quit Parallels Desktop before ejecting the drive. Depending on the disk performance and the amount of used RAM in Windows, suspending/resuming the VM might take some time.
 
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Dmitry@Parallels said:
@Sathiya@Parallels is being very precautious, I would say that there is a chance to lose Windows boot state but not so high. You can use Suspend option but make sure to wait until it will be suspended (until we save Windows RAM to file within virtual machine bundle) and quit Parallels Desktop before ejecting the drive. Depending on the disk performance and the amount of used RAM in Windows, suspending/resuming the VM might take some time.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, I've already purchased the external SSD, it works well and I don't feel noticeable performance lost. Thanks!
 
mdz said:
Thanks for the info, I've already purchased the external SSD, it works well and I don't feel noticeable performance lost. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Nice to know that. And you are welcome! Please post again for any additional queries.
 
TirthankarB said:
its suggested to shut down the VM before unplugging your SSD.
As there are chances of file corruption
Click to expand...
@TirthankarB @Hemnath@Parallels
I'm not sure about the complete mechanism behind parallels but my guess is if I put VM into sleep(suspend), the guest OS(my case win) will go sleep. I think win's sleep is to shut down everything except ram which keeps all the running processes' states, so now parallels comes in and save all data in ram into a file and save it into the VM bundle on host machine. Now everything is set for the VM, nothing is actually "running" we can safely remove the storage media.

Just my very own understanding of how parallels works, please correct me if I missed any important detail :)
 
mdz said:
but my guess is if I put VM into sleep(suspend), the guest OS(my case win) will go sleep. I think win's sleep is to shut down everything except ram which keeps all the running processes' states, so now parallels comes in and save all data in ram into a file and save it into the VM bundle on host machine. Now everything is set for the VM, nothing is actually "running" we can safely remove the storage media.
Click to expand...
Yes, that pretty much sums it up. Just remember to wait till the VM fully finishes suspending before doing anything else.
 
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