My current MacBook Air has 8GB RAM which is more than adequate for Parallels Desktop 9 – but my next Mac will have at least 16GB RAM or more, if available. While the stated memory requirements for Desktop 9 start at 2GB, users will find that more is better in this department, as a sizable block of memory must be assigned to the virtual machine OS. To be effective, virtual machines need to live on a speedy machine such as a late model iMac, MacBook Pro or Air. Of course, your mileage will vary based on the configuration of your host computer. My virtual machines were significantly speedier after migrating to Desktop 9. While I often take marketing claims of this nature with a grain of salt, this one seems to stand true. Parallels claims up to 40 percent better disk performance in Desktop 9 in addition to faster start-up, shutdown and suspend times. The biggest reason to upgrade is speed, however, as Parallels Desktop 9 runs noticeably faster than version 8. Released in September 2013, Parallels Desktop 9 improves an already robust hardware emulator with a host of new features, including: Support for Windows 8 Thunderbolt and Firewire device access multi-monitor settings remembered iCloud, SkyDrive and Dropbox sync and an enhanced wizard making it considerably easier to setup a new virtual machine. Suffice it to say that the SSD completely changed the way I used virtual machines and put Parallels Desktop on my daily use list. The differences in speed between the SSD and a conventional hard drive is remarkable, making a virtual machine respond just like a hardware-based Windows workstation. When I reviewed Parallels Desktop 8 ( PrintAction, February 2013), I had just made the transition to a new MacBook Air with a Solid State Drive (SSD).
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