Bootcamp Reliability Vs. Parallels

MarkyMark

MarkyMark

MarkyMark

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Hi all,

Just wondered if any of you mac guru's could give me a bit of advice. I'm currently looking to stick XP on my macbook (Leopard 10.5) because I don't want to fork out a few hundred quid on a new laptop, and I have a spare legit copy of XP in my desk collecting dust. THe main reason for needing XP is the need to run Sage accounts software.

Never wanting to polute my mac in the past i've never really looked into this but unfortunately now the time has come. It seems Parallels has a cost associated to it and from what i can tell the Bootcamp option would be free.

However, how reliable is bootcamp and does it depend on Mac OS running on the laptop? What happens if my mac partition were to fail? Do I then lose my windows partition too?

Additionally does anyone have any do's or don'ts when dabbling with either of the above?

Massive thanks in advance all.
 
MarkyMark said:
Hi all,

Just wondered if any of you mac guru's could give me a bit of advice. I'm currently looking to stick XP on my macbook (Leopard 10.5) because I don't want to fork out a few hundred quid on a new laptop, and I have a spare legit copy of XP in my desk collecting dust. THe main reason for needing XP is the need to run Sage accounts software.

Never wanting to polute my mac in the past i've never really looked into this but unfortunately now the time has come. It seems Parallels has a cost associated to it and from what i can tell the Bootcamp option would be free.

However, how reliable is bootcamp and does it depend on Mac OS running on the laptop? What happens if my mac partition were to fail? Do I then lose my windows partition too?

Additionally does anyone have any do's or don'ts when dabbling with either of the above?

Massive thanks in advance all.
Click to expand...

Technically Windows is installed on a separate partition on your disk, it is just that the boot manager is invoked from OS X's bootup (You can hold down menu on the remote or right Alt key at Apple sound to pick which OS to boot into). As long as you could restore your OS X to working then you should be able to continue dual booting.

It is as reliable as the drivers that you install tbh. I found XP to be very stable (on MBP). Parallels won't give you much "oomph" if you want to do some serious windows computing, but will be fine for everyday stuff. Bootcamp will give you the full power of your hardware.

I prefer VMWare Fusion over Parallels tbh, but for XP anyway, apart from Vmware supporting more Directx stuff (better games support etc) they are the same. If you want just raw speed and no fancy graphics stuff and FREE, I recommend http://www.virtualbox.org/ similar thing but free.

I have setup the same virtual machine (XP Pro) in all 3 before and for bootup and general day to day basic performance Virtualbox was much faster than the other 2, but has a few less "flashy" features. The Vbox image booted up in sub 20 seconds to useable desktop.


rp2000
 
I use Bootcamp, Parallels and Fusion extensively. I rarely, if ever, boot into Bootcamp.

The only time I have to are when I'm demo'ing live media stuff (Exchange Unified messaging/OCS type voice & video) - it's not as nice under virtualisation.

I generally don't think reliability is an issue regardless of which method you choose - the only thing you get from going native in Bootcamp is slightly better performance. Voice/Audio & Video can be weak when virtualised.

In terms of Parallels v Fusion it's an interesting one - what I've found is that Parallels integrates better for desktop OS' use into OSX. It seems snappier - that's of course completely subjective.

It's a different story when using server OS' though like Win 2003/2008 32 or 64 bit - I seem to get more sessions running with Fusion. My demo suite for example has a 2008 DC with OCS/SQL installed, then an Exchange 2007 host, and then an XP (now Win7) workstation - all running on VMWare. Fine it takes about 7 or 8 minutes to boot all of it up but it works, and it works well.

It didn't work so well on Parallels - I found the memory utilisation was far worse on Parallels for multiple hosts than for Fusion.

Now, to get back to your question :)

Bootcamp is essentially a loader that boots a Windows OS natively on your Mac - it's an intel unit after all. It's independent of the OSX install. If you want to access the OSX volumes you can - but you'll need extra software. I use something by Paragon if I remember rightly.

If you're in Windows via Bootcamp you'll not be running OSX at all - if you use Parallels or Fusion your Windows session would be a guest on your OSX system. Access to the OSX drives etc. is far easier as the host appears as a network share point.

It would be an easier question to answer if you qualified what you needed the Windows sessions for - this would answer whether virtualisation would be workable or whether Bootcamp is your only option.
 
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wow, thanks for the big replies guys. Also rp2000 thanks for the free virtualisation link. Free is always a good price so might try that anyhow and see how it works. I guess the main reason for my paranoia regarding bootcamp is that I had a stick of RAM fail me earlier in the year, and for some bizzar reason it took down the whole of OSX. I was shocked considering the night before it shut down happily. Never once had this with a Windows box. So as much as I love OSX I can't help but worry that its always a timebomb waiting for the ram to fail again and kill everything.

Therefore, if this were to happen and become unusable could I still use XP. rp2000 you mentioned that OSX has to be working. What if it failed, and I had to completely re-install OSX? Could I get it back then?

I realise that any virtualised machines depend entirely on OSX so If I go that route it is a risk I would have to take. However, if the bootcamp option is more solid and not reliant on OSX then Im also torn that way too :S

MacRS4, to answer your question as to what I need it for: I want to use it for Sage Accounts only pretty much. If I went the virtualisation way then all e-mail boxes + skype remains native in OSX. However since I use an imam server anyway it is just a case of install skype on a windows bootcamp partition and re-configuring thunderbird. Either way is not a problem.

Hope this is answering what you are asking. If you need mroe info from me, let me know and I will try to explain further.

Thanks again both :)
 
I'm not going to offer paragraphs of information like the others because A. They know more than me, and B. I have to go out in a minute. :p

But I've, like you, needed to use accounts software in Windows, but on my MacBook. I've found BootCamp to be fine for this so long as you don't mind waiting for Windows to boot and then restarting whenever you need to go back to Mac OS X. As said above it's all down to preference and what you are going to be using the machine for. If it was me I'd use BootCamp, it's exactly the same as installing and running Windows on a regular PC and all the drivers you'll need can be found on the Leopard install disk. :)

If you really can't decide, then why don't you just try BootCamp first anyway. It's free, it's quick and you'll have first hand experience of it. If you find that for any reason you don't like it then BootCamp also offers a very easy, simple and clean way of removing the partition it created.
 
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For something like using Sage then I'd suggest virtualisation with any of the options above would work just fine.

As to a RAM stick breaking OSX - if it did my guess is it had corrupted and it wrote the corruption out to OSX. This is just as likely to happen on a Windows box as OSX I would have thought, so I'd suggest you were just plain unlucky.

Personally I've found OSX to be rock solid.

Also, if OSX doesn't boot cos it's files are broken you can still boot Bootcamp as long as the boot-loader isn't broken.

One more point on the OSX - if you have a broken OSX partition that won't boot you can more often than not do an 'Archive and Install' on that partition so you get a clean OSX system back but still with your data on it. This doesn't dump your Bootcamp partition either so it's a safe bet. Still, I'd back up before hand.

Anyways, for just running Sage virtualisation will just work! How much RAM is in your Mac by the way? If it's less than 4Gb I'd probably use Win XP as the memory requirements are less than Vista (eeeugggh) or Win7 from what I've seen.

In terms of outright performance in Virtual guests it seems to be a rough tie between Win7 & XP in my entirely subjective opinion. Vista is pants when virtualised.
 
Agree Bootcamp just works but it can be a pain in the ass having to reboot. Scenario that you reboot into Bootcamp to realise you need info from a spreadsheet you've stored on your OSX partition. Rage. Reboot. Get Spreadsheet. Reboot again into Windows - repeat until boredom ensues :D

You can get s/w for your Windows partition to give you access to the OSX one but really if you just want to use a non-intensive app then virtualisation is the way to go.

You can also of course use modes where the Windows app appears like any other OSX app. Very nice.

http://gallery.me.com/macrs4#100596/Picture-201&bgcolor=black
 
You have XP and BootCamp comes on every Mac.

Install it and save the costs associated with the other VM stuff :p
 
Thanks again for all the replies everyone :)

Another question though. If I used bootcamp from what i'm reading if xp is installed as Fat32 then Mac os can see it and write to it. Therefore you can dump files from your mac onto the Bootcamp pc. However, is there a way of seeing back to the Mac or is this a one way process?
 
Yep if you use FAT32 you can write to it.

If you configure it as NTFS you'll need additional software. Either the free NTFS-3G - this is in my opinion hideously slow.... Although free.

I use this - Paragon's NTFS driver for OSX. Allows full native read/write to NTFS - works very well and is quick too - you just don't notice it.

Conversely to access OSX volumes from Windows you need additional software. I use this - Meaifour's MacDrive. This will give you full read/write access.

Or don't buy either and just use Virtualisation :D
 
You can read a NTFS drive on a Mac, but you can't write to it without a 3rd party app, as MacRS4 has stated above.

I hate FAT32, so I'd never recommend installing XP on that just to get read/write access :o
 
You can use Sun's free Virtualbox as an alternative to VMWare/Parallels.

I don't think the 3D performance is as good, but 3D is pretty poor in any virtualised environment.
 
What i do on my mac is i have windows XP installed under boot camp but i normally use VMware to run the windows programs from the bootcamp install as you can use the same one. But when i need the extra performance (for games normally) I reboot into bootcamp.

This is the best solution in my opinion.
 
I mainly use Fusion just for running Newsleecher until I discovered Crossover which is an app that makes Windows apps run on an Mac :)
 
I don't understand how a memory stick failure broke OS X?

Anyway try VirtualBox and see if Virtualisation is for you. I find running Windows in a VM (and Fusion is my weapon of choice) far more usefull than Bootcamp.

Only reason for BootCamp is GPU intensive stuff (games, 3D work).
 
CrossOver is great for stuff it supports, don't even try using it for anything else.
 
I use Crossover - it's handy if I need to quickly check something in outlook for example. I wouldn't use it for normal working however as I find it unreliable.
 
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