Over the past several days, I have been running back to back tests of internet throughput on Parallels Desktop and OSX on the same machine, using the speed tests at http://www.dslreports.com. I have a rather fast cable connection, with a rated maximum speed of 8000 kbits/sec. Under Parallels, the tested throughput is 8162 kbps; under OSX, it is typically around 6100 kbps. I was suspicious of these results, and have replicated them several times. I also optimized the Mac connection using IPNetTunerX, with no appreciable increase in speed on either OS. This differential is comparable to that which I have noted between my Mac Pro and my standalone 3 ghz single processor PC which share the same connection. Historically, Macs have lagged behind PC's in their TCP/IP performance, for reasons I do not understand, since this protocol was developed on and for UNIX machines originally. I would have thought this would have been remedied in OSX by now, especially with the hot hardware. But whatever the explanation, this superior performance as a host OS is a tribute to the elegance of the virtual machine approach in general, and Parallels' implementation in particular. It also throws down the gauntlet to the OSX development team. Lest one think that this is a trivial difference from a user's perspective, it translates directly into much snappier browsing (using the same browsers on both) and faster downloads. In fact, I now download files destined for the Mac within Parallels, saving them to the shared folder, which I have mounted as a network drive. What kind of experiences have other users had in this regard?
Hi, Mine is rated 8000/500 by my provider, and I have 7700/490 and this is while one of my other laptop is connected to the VPN site at the office and is very active with remote desktop and outlook sync. So my Mac speed is very close to what my provider tells me Ièm supposed to get for the low rate I'm paying
I noticed this using Virtual PC as well. Windows downloads are significantly faster than the same download on the Mac side. I don't know why.
