From what I understand so far you can install Parallels on your MAC OSX HD and then point it to the VM file where VISTA etc. will actually reside. The question is if firewire 400/800 has enough bandwidth on a 7200rpm external to run properly? Has anyone tried this type of installation? Am I just better off getting another internal SATAII drive for my MacPro?
I would expect firewire has more then enough bandwidth for that. I currently run Vista or XP off a USB2.0 external hard drive and it runs very well. Of course I have assigned 1Gb to the virtual machines as they are used for development. If you are thinking about buying an external case just for that, then it will be cheaper just to put in a new Sata II drive in. If however you already have the external case and drive, then by all means use it.
I used to run a WinXP VM off a USB2 external HDD (100Gb 2.5"), allocating 256Mb to the VM, and it ran better than my HP NX9110 could run WinXP natively. As I am going to be doing alot of MS work now, decided that I need more speed from my VM on the external, so I invested in a FW 400/800 chassis. It runs like lightning via FW 400 (from startup to login in under 20 seconds). I can't wait to run it on FW 800 (waiting for my cable to arrive). Oh, this is on a MacBook Pro 17"
I run Vista off of an external 100gb SATA drive in a FW800 case. It runs much faster than my internal 160gb SATA drive in my 17" MBP. Go figure.
Runn Vista in Parallels from external HD I run Vista from a from an external 80GB Smartdisk FireLite. Firewire 400. Runs fine. There is only a delay when access other external devices, e.g CDROM or USB drive.
