the effect of allocating more memory to a guest os on mac performance when parallel d

H

halosakamoto

Bit poster
Hello. I have a basic question, and would be grateful if somebody would kindly let me know the answer to it.

What happens to Mac performance when you allocate more memory to a guest OS (Windows 7, in my case), when parallel desktop is not open? I understand that when you allocate more memory to a guest OS, the guest OS will be faster and Mac will be slower. But does this affect Mac performance when you don't even have parallel desktop open? If so, would you have to manually re-allocate memory back to Mac when you just want to use Mac and maximize its performance?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best wishes,

Taka
 
Hello halosakamoto,

If too much memory is allocated to Windows Virtual Machine, Mac OS X may slow down, which in turn can cause Windows programs to slow down because they are running on top of Mac OS X. If, on the other hand, a little memory is allocated to Windows, then Mac OS X applications may run well but Windows programs might be slow.

It is recommended to use/ allot RAM to the Virtual Machine as per the range recommended by Parallels Desktop application based on the resources available on the MAC.

To know more information on much memory you need to assign to your Virtual Machine, please refer http://kb.parallels.com/113649
 
Thank you, Maheesh, for your answer. I understand this is what is recommended to improve the performance of a virtual machine. My questions is, what happens to the performance of Mac after allocating more memory to a virtual machine and closing both the virtual machine and parallel desktop (e.g., when you're done with the virtual machine and you close Parallel Desktop). Is all the memory automatically re-allocated back to Mac if neither Parallel Desktop nor a virtual machine is open? Or do you have to manually adjust the memory allocation back in Parallel Desktop's Configuration menu to regain the best performance of Mac when you don't have a virtual machine on?

That is, do you need to manually change the setting back when you're done with the virtual machine in order to maximize the performance of Mac?

I apologize for not being clear in my first post.

Thank you very much for your kind help.

Best wishes,

Taka
 
Hi halosakamoto,

If your Virtual Machine is shutdown and Parallels Desktop is not running, then the memory will be re-allocated back to your Mac automatically.

The memory will be assigned to the Virtual Machine only when it is running.

So you can assign the memory to Virtual Machine upto the recommended range and if Parallels isnt running the memory will be given back to your Mac.
 
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