Parallels takes virtualization speed crown in head-to-head with VMware

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 70
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jeffharris View Post


    How do you know VirtualBox is "behind" if there's no feature comparison anywhere?



    1) Because it's free.



    2) Because I've used all 3. (I prefer Fusion for the reasons stated above: stability)
  • Reply 42 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by irnchriz View Post


    Having used both VMWare 3 and Parallels 5 on an i5 and i7 MacPro





    What i5 or i7 *MacPro* would that be...do you have a time machine...I am not aware of any i5 or i7 MacPro's
  • Reply 43 of 70
    Multimonitor support? No? Still? Crappy networking support? Yes?



    Hate ||s. VMWare may be slower but i'd never know it because I'm too busy avoiding running ||s due to it's 1 monitor limitation and networking issues. It's bogus.
  • Reply 44 of 70
    Interesting, now get on the ball, VMWare!
  • Reply 45 of 70
    Yea, sure would have been nice if they included it in the comparison...





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jeffharris View Post


    How do you know VirtualBox is "behind" if there's no feature comparison anywhere?



  • Reply 46 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by libertyforall View Post


    Yea, sure would have been nice if they included it in the comparison...



    parallels is also painfully slow when dragging files between windows and mac in addition to it's limitation of only using one friggen monitor.
  • Reply 47 of 70
    jb510jb510 Posts: 129member
    I realize it is a little outside the objective world of benchmarking but IMHO the most critical component of VM software is how well it can recover from crash/corruption. *



    Early on with Fusion 2 I several times found my VM corrupted beyond recovery. With how little I actually use Windows no amount of speed increase in regular or infrequent As the vae may be use could ever compensate for the frustration of those events which required reinstalling windows and apps from scratch. *Happily I haven't once lost my Fusion 3 Windows VMs (xp and W7), but again I don't use windows much...



    What I honestly use virtualized far more often is Ubuntu Linux and as such really wish someone would do a little performance benchmarking of it between Parallels and Fusion.*



    One last thing, does parrallels really not support multiple monitors? That to would be an instant deal breaker for me. * * * *
  • Reply 48 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    1) Because it's free.



    2) Because I've used all 3. (I prefer Fusion for the reasons stated above: stability)



    Number 2 is a really good reason. But why bring up number 1? It sounds like a non sequitur, to say the least.
  • Reply 49 of 70
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solarein View Post


    Number 2 is a really good reason. But why bring up number 1? It sounds like a non sequitur, to say the least.



    Products that don't have a strong financial backing don't have a structure for good developers to spend 60+ hours a week coding for it. Ergo, they are less likely to be better products than ones that are given away for free, relying solely on volunteer work.
  • Reply 50 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Isomorphic View Post


    Speed is fine and all, but I feel like I'm paying to beta-test Parallels' product for them. I use Fusion when I want to get work done.



    Amen, brother (or sister ).



    Parallels may indeed run faster, but I had to butt heads with their tech support several times and never got it to work very well in my situation. VMware Fusion is far from perfect, and in fact seems to have taken somewhat of a giant step backwards with the 3.xx releases. It still works the best for me, so I stick with it.



    I am sure there are many others who experienced similar frustration with Parallels who now use Fusion, and won't consider switching back.



    Just my $1.25 worth. YMMV
  • Reply 51 of 70
    kolchakkolchak Posts: 1,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Toyin View Post


    Parallels naysayers remind me of the VW naysayers. Claiming that "VW's have electrical problems" based on old history.



    I'd have to agree. It seems many of these complaints are "it screwed me once, so I'm not going to try it again." I jump back and forth between the two. There was a time when I liked Parallels better. Then I vastly preferred Fusion, both running on XP. Then new versions came out and I'm firmly back in the Parallels camp again, running Windows 7. That may change again with Fusion 4.0. But I'm not going to let past experiences color my opinions of current products.
  • Reply 52 of 70
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Products that don't have a strong financial backing don't have a structure for good developers to spend 60+ hours a week coding for it. Ergo, they are less likely to be better products than ones that are given away for free, relying solely on volunteer work.



    Sun put a bit of effort into VirtualBox and Oracle hasn't killed it yet. It has some nice features and sits IMHO between Parallels and VMWare...more enterprise than parallels or fusion, not quite as enterprise as VMWare VSX.
  • Reply 53 of 70
    haggarhaggar Posts: 1,568member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rokcet Scientist View Post


    Tried to install VirualBox on Leopard, a year ago, but the installation procedure crapped out on me, and froze, forcing a restart. Uninstalled VirtualBox. Nevertheless, since then VirtualBox refuses to start its installation process on my system. Apparently some corrupt VirtualBox auxiliary file still remains somewhere on my system, blocking a new installation. Can't find it, though.



    But I thought Macs don't need uninstallers because all you have to do is drag the application to the trash.
  • Reply 54 of 70
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    But I thought Macs don't need uninstallers because all you have to do is drag the application to the trash.



    Actually, I think Macs need a smarter system when it comes to apps. Not the complex method required by nearly all Windows apps, but something built into the OS or DMGs to know when you are trying to run the DMG and to ask you if you'd like to install it into your /Applications folder.



    It would also need to remove the mounted Disk Image after it completes this task.



    There are some 3rd-party apps that check for this but this needs to be part of the default setup as it's one of the areas in Macs that even long time users seem to get confused by.





    PS: I use AppTrap, a Pref Pane item that runs at start up. If I delete an app it asks me if I'd like to remove the associated /Library files, too. It gives me a list allowing me to cherry pick any of them. It would be nice if this was also standard operation on Mac OS X.
  • Reply 55 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    But I thought Macs don't need uninstallers because all you have to do is drag the application to the trash.



    Most of the time, this is the case. Applications which install kernel extensions require uninstallers. In these instances, the application installer should also have an option for uninstall.
  • Reply 56 of 70
    When I think back to my history with both systems. The Fusion disk image has been corrupted or unusable more then the Parallels images. It's usually not a huge issue because at least once a month I allow time capsule to back up the images.



    What's the problem with 2 monitors? Like I said previously I have PC software running either on my screen or an external 32" monitor, while the other screen runs either a DVD or iTunes. I can drag windows back and forth between both monitors. I also never had issues with dragging files to and from the 2 OSes. I found that cut and paste is a little buggier in Fusion, while application switching with cmd-tab or mouse click is better in Fusion.



    I find it ironic that Parallels support is what get's the worst rap. Personally I haven't needed support for either product (knock on wood). Now that's not that I haven't had to troubleshoot issues, but most of the common issues are easily found online or by reading the manual and adjusting preferences.



    Anywho, be happy with whatever your using. For my use (Windows XP in a windows network at work, and VPN to 2 hospitals), Parallels works better. Like I said earlier I have both products up to the latest versions and Parallels is the clear winner. These benchmarks support what I've suspected. It's up to you to decide if that's enough for you. The reason why I continue to try both products is because of all the glowing reviews of Fusion. I'm more of the school of "if you can make it better then try" not "if it ain't broke don't fix it".



    peace
  • Reply 57 of 70
    Dumb question perhaps and off topic, but is it possible to install both and run them alternately? One for performance , the other for reliability?



    Parallels gave me lots of BSOD, VM Fusion solid, but evidently slower...



    Thanks.
  • Reply 58 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bobcat22 View Post


    Dumb question perhaps and off topic, but is it possible to install both and run them alternately? One for performance , the other for reliability?



    Parallels gave me lots of BSOD, VM Fusion solid, but evidently slower...



    Thanks.



    I used to get kernel panics when I accidentally launched a second virtualization application (Crossover excluded).



    If you're getting BSOD then you may have too much memory allocated to Parallels or not enough system memory. I would go through the preferences and configure your system like they did for these tests.
  • Reply 59 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Products that don't have a strong financial backing don't have a structure for good developers to spend 60+ hours a week coding for it. Ergo, they are less likely to be better products than ones that are given away for free, relying solely on volunteer work.



    There are too many non sequiturs in this claim...

    The price of a product does not necessarily indicate the financial backing behind a product. Just because a product is free doesn't mean it relies solely on volunteer work.

    Developers who are getting paid do not necessarily produce better work than developers working for other reasons.

    Developers working on a product for non-monetary are not necessarily volunteering their efforts. There are many other reasons for doing so.
  • Reply 60 of 70
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Isomorphic View Post


    Speed is fine and all, but I feel like I'm paying to beta-test Parallels' product for them. I use Fusion when I want to get work done.



    Agreed



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by curtwilliams View Post


    I tried Parallels because I read it was faster. But I had a lot of problems and got really terrible support. Finally gave up on them and went back to Fusion. Fusion works well.



    I started with Parallels when I was new to Mac's. At the time everyone I knew said thats what you want to use. That was with version 2. I upgraded to three with little trouble, things went bad when I upgraded to 4. I had serious USB issues (wouldn't work at all) and I gave up and went to Fusion. When I'm in WIndows I'm either doing work or school stuff. For the relatively short amount of time I'm in the Windows environment I'm not spending anymore time searching for a better experience. On paper the new versions might be quicker and better but I'm not taking my time to experiment.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zunx View Post


    To control USB-based devices from Windows applications from the Mac, the only viable solution os Fusion. Parallels simply does not deliver.



    Agreed, as stated above.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FineTunes View Post


    I have to agree with the sheff and ghostface's posts. Currently running Fusion 2 and Windows XP so I can run Office 2007 on my 17" uMBP 2.93 GHz with a 256GB SSD. When I did the research, Fusion 2 had a slight edge over Parallel 4. Although it seems that a lot of comments for each was a matter of personal preference to the users. I don't plan on upgrading to either Fusion 3 or Parallel 5, if it works and it's not broke then why switch. Also staying with Windows XP and Office 2007.



    As for VirtualBox, I'm sure that they have made improvements over the last year, but when I was reading which to go with, they were dead last and had some problems.



    I too had the same issues with VirtualBox when I looked at them before going to Fusion 2. I think if I come to a point where I need to upgrade Fusion, I'd probably look at VirtualBox one more time.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Toyin View Post


    Parallels naysayers remind me of the VW naysayers. Claiming that "VW's have electrical problems" based on old history.



    I'm a long-time VW owner and Parallels naysayer. Currently loving my Passat 5.5 with 4-Motion in the two feet of snow we have here. Looks like I have issues!
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