Parallels Cache Policy ?!

Hello,

I would like to know what this setting means.

When I choose Virtual Machine - my iMac is so slow, it's crazy.
When I choose Mac OSX - my iMac is Ok.

I have an Intel iMac (Core Duo) 1GB Ram, VM=Windows XP SP2 - 384MB Ram.

I moved the VM to my External USB 2.0 Drive (Maxtor OneTouch USB 2.0 160GB) so my iMac's HD won't go balistic because of the paging effect parallels has (I know USB 2.0 has a problem with bandwidth)

To sum things up, does anyone use Cache Policy on VM and doesn't have a performance hit.
And if this setting does a performance hit, why is it there?

Thanks in advance,
Idan.

 

You've experienced it exactly as it was designed. By having the cache policy favouring the VM, it means the performance of the OS inside the VM, as far as disk caching goes, will be prioritized over the host OS (Mac OS X). Under this setting rest of the system will suffer.

The other option is the complete opposite, of course. It'll sacrifice the VM's performance to have the host OS run 'sane'.

 

When it takes Caching off the host OS - it means all drives connected to that OS or just the drive that the VM is on ?
What I mean is, if I turn it on while running from an external drive, will my internal drive still be cached ?

Thanks,

Idan.

Edit: Running the VM off an external USB 2.0 drive with Caching disabled makes the VM slower then running Qemu ! So Unresponsive.

 

Calicardiff... 768KB? Do you mean MB? I wouldn't dream of dedicating less than 5 or so...