Running Parallels VM on External Drive

W

Wally_Mac

Member
I've got Parallels and Windows XP installed and running quite happily on my Mac.

Is it possible to move the "user/library/parallels" folder to and external drive, either Firewire, USB or NAS, and then run Parallels from the external drive?
If so, is it simply a matter of copying the VM files?
 
Hi,
it's just the VM files that matter. Actually, the HDD file. You can transfer it and then in Configuration Editor in the Hard Drive section enter the correct path to it.
 
Excellent!
This will provide me with an additional layer of flexibility in terms of HDD size and HDD space constraints.
Thanks!
 
I clone my active VM to an external portable HD attached to my MacBookPro. I can run the VM from the external drive. As with many MBP users, my internal drive space is limited. I just expanded my VM from 8000MB to 32000MB. For now, I will continue to run the VM off the internal drive to take advantage of drive speed. However, I did discover that when I need to expand the VM and make Windows recognize the added size, I need to do this on the internal drive. I've found that although Parallels Disk Image tool will expand the VM on my external drive, i can't get the VM on the external drive to boot off the ISO image of Gparted* to expand the windows partition. So, I do this on the internal drive then clone the expanded VM over to the external drive. Eventually, that's where I will be running the VM as my internal drive fills up.

See How to Expand your Parallels Drive and Get Windows to Recognize it.
 
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