MBA and .NET dev?

lokkers · 2 Oct 2011 at 17:10

I'm toying with the idea of replacing my ageing Dell XPS (M1530) with a 13" MBA (128GB - about as far as my limited budget will stretch), because it's smaller, lighter and looks fantastic

However, I occasionally use my laptop for a bit of dev work (.NET, MSSQL) which is obviously an issue under OSX.

I'd therefore either run Windows under bootcamp (which I understand is dual-booting?), or virtualised under something like VMware.

Just wondering if anyone does the same, and whether it's a workable solution? I'd either run the VM from the SSD, or from an external disk.

lokkers · 2 Oct 2011 at 19:01

Thats why I was planning to run Windows as a VM - I'd only need about 30GB I reckon, and I can move it to an external drive if necessary.

lokkers · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:40

uniQ said:
Up the RAM to 8GB and VM's should be pretty smooth.

I currently have Ubuntu, Win7, and Win8 DP on my MBP as VM's. A long with using Visual Studio on Win7 with no problems.

I'd like 8GB, but the MBA comes with a max of 4GB. I can't really justify the extra cost of a MBP

lokkers · 3 Oct 2011 at 20:42

Thanks for the feedback chaps.

As much as I'd love to spend the extra for the 256GB SSD, funds don't permit the extra outlay on something that I don't expect I'll use that much. I think I'll be fine running the VM on 2GB ram (I can always use SQLCE over SQL Express anyway), so it was more the disk space that might end up being a concern.

My home dev stuff is mainly just for fun, and to keep up to date with the technologies I don't get to use at work. I can always RDP into work or my desktop if I need to do anything serious