VMs are unusably slow

[kirkland]

So I'm working with ~25 accounts currently. Tried using VM to speed up the process, but they take SO long to load. Even if I just do one at a time. I am using Parallels on my Mac to run Mac OSX on top of MacOSX... files are stored to an external hard drive.

Is there a faster way? At this rate I would prefer to just use the old user account method as it's way faster for me.

[yotano211]

Maybe you need more RAM on your computer. From my understanding, VMs use lots of RAM.

[glacier922]

Why not just use windows 7 or XP as your virtual machine? You don't need that much to run accounts with those OS. You can use virtual box or vmware. From those, you can use firefox portable with each account, it runs way faster this way.

[phaz0rz]

Running your VM's from an external hard drive could be a bottleneck for your VM performance especially if it's a USB 2.0 drive. Try storing one on your internal HDD and see how fast it loads.

[ilcarletto]

OP, there are also reduced versions of Window7 and Xp which require small ammountof ram.
Try to look for Tiny7 or TinyXp

[phaz0rz]

Sounds like a data transfer issue and not a memory issue. How much RAM have you allocated to your VM's OP?

[kirkland]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Why not just use windows 7 or XP as your virtual machine? You don't need that much to run accounts with those OS. You can use virtual box or vmware. From those, you can use firefox portable with each account, it runs way faster this way.

I've become super used to Mac, I guess I could give Windows a shot again. It's been years though... running a VM through a web browser sounds awesome though.

Originally Posted by ilcarletto

OP, there are also reduced versions of Window7 and Xp which require small ammountof ram.
Try to look for Tiny7 or TinyXp

I'll suppose I can give it a shot if I go the windows route. I wonder how other people manage to run multiple Mac VMs though

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

Running your VM's from an external hard drive could be a bottleneck for your VM performance especially if it's a USB 2.0 drive. Try storing one on your internal HDD and see how fast it loads.

I have a 128gb Mac and don't even have enough memory to save two Parallel VMs on here. I have no idea why theres so little. To your other point, I don't know how much RAM is allocated... whatever the default setting for Parallels is, I guess. I'll try to figure it out.


If you all haven't guessed yet, I'm pretty computer inept.

[phaz0rz]

If your laptop is old enough to have a 128G hard drive then you definitely do not have USB 3.0 ports. You have USB 2.0 at best which is too slow to run an operating system in real time with. You could upgrade your internal hard drive to something larger (maybe even an SSD) for relatively cheap, store your VM's on the new internal drive, and eliminate your lag problem.

[mperic]

Computer engineering major here. I use VMware for my accounts, and they run fantastic. I run them all with 8GB ram, all CPU cores, and a 40GB SSD space allocation.

SSDs are significantly faster than traditional hard drives in terms of read/write. I would recommend using an SSD for virtualization, or at least an enterprise-grade HDD for virtualization. If you want to buy a HDD for storing your virtual machines(significantly less $/GB), I recommend getting one with high amounts of cache. 128MB of cache or higher should run fine, assuming it's only being used for virtual machines and nothing else.

[nodeal]

I had this same problem, and I invested in an SSD as mperic mentioned. SSD are significantly more expensive than an HDD but if you want to continue running Mac OS X VMs from your external then they are a must.

I bought two 4TB Samsung SSD, A LOT of money, but WELL WORTH IT. My VM's run very fast and very smooth.

[empirestate]

Upgrade to SSD and upgrade ram to 32gb

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[glacier922]

you can get a 256gb ssd for cheap, and for firefox portable, you can just use a regular external hdd and have the os read off of that. So much easier and cheaper.

[empirestate]

[nodeal]

Yeah if 256gb is enough storage for you then you are in luck price-wise.

OS X requires around 20gb (I believe) storage for each VM. You could store around 10 VMs with this, but I would go for 1TB to give your business room to grow.

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by empirestate

Upgrade to SSD and upgrade ram to 32gb

Neither of those will help if OP doesn't upgrade to USB 3.0. USB 2.0's data transfer rate is simply too slow to run operating systems in real time.

He mentioned he's booting from an external drive. Nobody upgrades their external drive to SSD because SSD's aren't as reliable as HDD's.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by nodeal

I had this same problem, and I invested in an SSD as mperic mentioned. SSD are significantly more expensive than an HDD but if you want to continue running Mac OS X VMs from your external then they are a must.

I bought two 4TB Samsung SSD, A LOT of money, but WELL WORTH IT. My VM's run very fast and very smooth.

Nice idea but different people have different budgets to juggle with

[nodeal]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

Neither of those will help if OP doesn't upgrade to USB 3.0. USB 2.0's data transfer rate is simply too slow to run operating systems in real time.

He mentioned he's booting from an external drive. Nobody upgrades their external drive to SSD because SSD's aren't as reliable as HDD's.

I can't speak for using Windows, but with VMs that are running Mac OS X while hosting from Mac OS X, the use of an SSD was the difference of night and day.

I run my VMs off an SSD but I do back them up onto a HDD.

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by nodeal

I can't speak for using Windows, but with VMs that are running Mac OS X while hosting from Mac OS X, the use of an SSD was the difference of night and day.

I run my VMs off an SSD but I do back them up onto a HDD.

But you're using a USB 3.0 port (the blue one) right?

I'm not saying SSD's won't improve performance. Replacing my internal HDD with an SSD a few years ago made a world of difference.

But the bottleneck in this example is the USB 2.0 port being used to connect the external drive. USB 2.0 can only transfer 60 megabytes per second which is nowhere near fast enough to run an operating system in real time. USB 3.0 on the other hand is over 10x faster (640 megabytes per second data transfer) and can easily run an externally booted OS.

It's all about identifying and eliminating system bottlenecks.

[nodeal]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

But you're using a USB 3.0 port (the blue one) right?

I'm not saying SSD's won't improve performance. Replacing my internal HDD with an SSD a few years ago made a world of difference.

But the bottleneck in this example is the USB 2.0 port being used to connect the external drive. USB 2.0 can only transfer 60 megabytes per second which is nowhere near fast enough to run an operating system in real time. USB 3.0 on the other hand is over 10x faster (640 megabytes per second data transfer) and can easily run an externally booted OS.

It's all about identifying and eliminating system bottlenecks.

Yes sir on both the HDD and the SSD I was using USB 3.0

The HDD worked decent for the first few months, but then it really started to crap out towards the end. Tried to replace with another HDD and same thing, the VMs just ran so slow and inconsistently, with a lot of crashes.

Not sure how many VMs OP is using, but I had around 100 stored on an 8TB HDD using USB 3.0 and it simply could not handle the job.

Since SSDs are so expensive OP should try 3.0 before investing in one. But if a 3.0 HDD doesn't do the trick then definitely try an SSD as it has been the biggest asset to my business in a long time.

As was mentioned before though use an HDD as your backup!