Using an external disk
Best way: Do a normal install of Parallels Desktop for Mac to the boot drive and put the Virtual Machine (.pvm) package(s) on whatever local drive is convenient. Here's why:
Parallels Desktop for Mac is an application best installed on the system disk as normally done by the supplied installer. As with any other OS X application, use of the standard installation avoids problems from nonstandard install locations.
Virtual Machine (.pvm) packages may reside essentially anywhere. Network-attached storage is not recommended because of potential corruption problems from network glitches. But any locally-attached storage is fair game. If you copy or move a VM package to a new location, as in your migration scenario, simply open or double-click the package and PDM will register it in the Virtual Machine list.
Coherence mode is a PDM application setting not directly related to VM package location.
Last edited: Dec 14, 2013