Do Parallels and VM work fine on external SSD?
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megavolt17
Pro
My VM is currently located on an external M.2 drive connected to my MacBook Pro by TB3 (my Mac and the drive enclosure are both TB4, but my hub between them is only TB3). This setup works fine for me. It's barely noticeably slower loading games, etc. than when it was on my MacBook internal drive. A USB connected drive may be too slow to be satisfactory.
Pay close attention to the drive speed and your connection speed because that will affect "PC" performance. For example my internal HD reads 4769 MB/s, my M.2 external drive reads 2480 MB/s, and my USB 6G SSD reads only at 626 MB/s. That is OK for backing up to or saving files to, but I'd hate to have to use it to run my virtual PC.
Pay close attention to the drive speed and your connection speed because that will affect "PC" performance. For example my internal HD reads 4769 MB/s, my M.2 external drive reads 2480 MB/s, and my USB 6G SSD reads only at 626 MB/s. That is OK for backing up to or saving files to, but I'd hate to have to use it to run my virtual PC.
Thank you. Is it worth to go for M4 Pro Mini 512GB/1TB rather than M4 Mini 512GB just because the Pro has faster SSD speed?
I the Parallels program on my internal drive and my Windows 11ARM VM file on an external USB SSD drive and it runs fine. But I don't have any high end games under Windows and all my photography work is done completely on the Mac side, so not really running the Windows VM for anything that would be a major drag on the system.
megavolt17
Pro
The drive speed of the Pro Mini over the Mini would likely not make much of an impact on performance. What would have a more significant impact would be the number of CPU cores and memory.
Parallels will use half the CPU cores for optimal performance. So on the Mini Parallels would get 2 performance cores for Windows. On the Pro Mini it would get 4 CPU cores for double the performance.
Memory is also split between the Mac and PC by Parallels. So the Mini would allow Parallels 8 GIG of RAM, and the Pro Mini would allow it 12. It's Unified memory, so part of what Windows gets assigned it will reserve for graphics memory. Windows will make a swap file if needed, but that will slow things down more than running from RAM.
It depends on what you plan on using Windows 11 for. If just running Office for word processing and light gaming the Mini may be all that you need.
Parallels will use half the CPU cores for optimal performance. So on the Mini Parallels would get 2 performance cores for Windows. On the Pro Mini it would get 4 CPU cores for double the performance.
Memory is also split between the Mac and PC by Parallels. So the Mini would allow Parallels 8 GIG of RAM, and the Pro Mini would allow it 12. It's Unified memory, so part of what Windows gets assigned it will reserve for graphics memory. Windows will make a swap file if needed, but that will slow things down more than running from RAM.
It depends on what you plan on using Windows 11 for. If just running Office for word processing and light gaming the Mini may be all that you need.
I'm no expert, and don't claim to be. However, I believe that running Parallels from an external drive on a Mac Mini is completely possible without much (if any) degradation.
My assumption is based on the reports that I have seen on YouTube that high speed enclosures running NVMe SSD memory actually come close to (and in some cases outperform) Apple's internal memory speeds.
But maybe there's more to this, and my assumption is bad (which is totally possible). Please post if I am making a bad assumption here. Cuz I am thinking about doing the same thing as the OP.
My assumption is based on the reports that I have seen on YouTube that high speed enclosures running NVMe SSD memory actually come close to (and in some cases outperform) Apple's internal memory speeds.
But maybe there's more to this, and my assumption is bad (which is totally possible). Please post if I am making a bad assumption here. Cuz I am thinking about doing the same thing as the OP.
I am new to the group and would like some information. If I install Parallel on a Mac Mini M4 16/256 GB with Windows 11, what happens when I connect an external hard drive created with Windows 10? Will I be able to access the files as if I were connected to a Windows desktop? And if I install applications on Windows/Parallel, will I be able to access the connected files? Also, to save space on the Mac, I would like to install Parallel and the virtual machine on an SSD. What should I pay attention to? Thank you.
megavolt17
Pro
If the Windows 10 drive is formatted in NTFS or exFAT which Windows 11 understands how to read it should be. If you connected it to the Mac without running Windows it could read (but nor write to by default) if formatted in NTFS and read and write to it if it's formatted in exFAT.
If running Parallels and you connect the external drive it should ask if you want to mount the drive to the Mac or the PC.
If the Windows 10 drive is encrypted the Mac could not read it (I think) but the PC should (I think) if you know the encryption password
If running Parallels and you connect the external drive it should ask if you want to mount the drive to the Mac or the PC.
If the Windows 10 drive is encrypted the Mac could not read it (I think) but the PC should (I think) if you know the encryption password
megavolt17
Pro
I'd install Parallels to the main hard drive.
The virtual machine can go on your SSD. If you can afford something like a Thunderbolt external hard drive that would be 7-8 times faster than an SSD. This would be particularly important if your virtual machine runs low on RAM and has to use a swap file.
The virtual machine can go on your SSD. If you can afford something like a Thunderbolt external hard drive that would be 7-8 times faster than an SSD. This would be particularly important if your virtual machine runs low on RAM and has to use a swap file.
I installed Ubuntu on an external drive of a Mac Mini (older Intel). Twice in the last year, the screen saver locked me out and I had to turn off the system to get back in. When I did, the drive rolled back the file system to some state. it was like it had not synched the drive for weeks. I lost all configuration to compile Android -- settings and configuration. So, I'm going to switch to Virtualbox. The mini's local drive is tiny -- 200GB -- so the external drive was the only option. So, yes, it works, but be sure to disable any screen saver in the virtual system.
JamesF23
Hunter
Not sure about why you had that problem, but I have been storing my virtual machines for several years on an external SSD and it has worked perfectly, performance is the same as the internal SSDs.
I believe it was the Ubuntu screen saver -- I could not login after it started and had to power off. But some updates from Parallels can reset that -- because I definitely turned off power save / screen save the first time that happened.
I agree. I also moved my Windows 11 ARM files to an external SSD drive (left the Parallels application on the internal drive) and no issues whatsoever. But I don't play any high-end games and run my photography programs directly on my iMac M3.
JamesF23
Hunter
That would make more sense, considering the "reliability" of open source operating systems that I have seen in the past.