Going to the dark side, getting a MacBook

The new job I have, everyone in the company runs on Macbook Pros and Airs. I am in a support role, and looking to get one for the house. For those who have the entry MacBook (4gb/500gb) model, how many VM's can you have without sacrificing too much in performance. I'd like to be running both Linux and Windows VMs.

Any information would be appreciated. This will end up replacing an Asus laptop that has served me well over past 2.5 years.

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ptilsen

Haswell MacBooks should be available this month. You definitely want to wait. Even if you get a last-gen model, they ought to be cheaper soon.

thegoodbye

You're going to need more RAM if you want to be able to run a Windows VM without a noticeable performance hit.

Mrock4

I use a windows laptop for my work, and a macbook for my personal stuff/laptop- I love the macbook. I had 4GB and was able to run a few VM's, but they were pretty 'light' (small linux distro's). I upgraded at 16GB of RAM for a reasonable price and now can run pretty much anything.

MiikeB

Get a non retina pro that you can still upgrade yourself and throw in 16GB of RAM and a SSD where the cdrom is and you should have no problem with 3-4 VMs running at least.

Bokeh

Yeah planning to wait on the Haswell ones. We get a great discount from Apple as they are one of our largest customers. Hopefully the entry level Pros will allow more than 8gb.

kriscamaro68

Don't do it. Mac's have become a pill of crap. I have owned many over the years and my wife solely worked on macs as she is a Producer/Video Editor for a hockey team here. She HATES her mac. Granted she has a 27" imac but she owned a MacBook pro before and it crapped out all the time. She is trying to get switched over to PC cause she hates them that much.

Instead check this out: Razer Blade: The World's Thinnest Gaming Laptop - Razer United States

docrice

I use a combination of OS X, Linux, BSD, and Windows across a variety of hardware at both work and home. OS X can serve your purpose fine as long as you size your machine accordingly (SSD, enough RAM), but be mindful that Windows hosts tend to gobble more resources in their default configurations compared to Linux. That's not really a fair comparison though since I tend to run CLI-only environments on Linux vs. Windows (non-Server Core).

But there's a practical limit. Don't expect to run 5 Windows VMs in addition to a few Linux at the same time. It's one thing if you're spreading the load across RAID5 or 10 with 64 GB of memory on server hardware, but MacBooks don't stretch out that far.

N2IT

Boken I think it's a great idea. The macbooks are awesome powerful machines.

ptilsen

I would expect a Haswell MBP with SSD and 16GB+ RAM to comfortably run 5-10 VMs, depending on what they're actually doing.

Outside of screen issues leading to replacement, the great majority of research I did on the current-gen MBP (especially with Retina) led me to believe they are great machines and most people are satisfied with them.

I am averse to spending money on things I don't need, but I think I will be very tempted to get a Haswell 15'' MBP+R.

I would not get the Razer Blade, or any laptop with less than 1920x1080 resolution, and in general I think a thin-and-light 15'' is the best thing to have, but those are preferences.

Something I should point out is you can often get $100-$200 off of a an MBP if you attend a college in the US.

MiikeB

kriscamaro68 wrote: »

Don't do it. Mac's have become a pill of crap. I have owned many over the years and my wife solely worked on macs as she is a Producer/Video Editor for a hockey team here. She HATES her mac. Granted she has a 27" imac but she owned a MacBook pro before and it crapped out all the time. She is trying to get switched over to PC cause she hates them that much.

Instead check this out: Razer Blade: The World's Thinnest Gaming Laptop - Razer United States

He isn't looking for a mac because he thinks they are awesome, he is looking for one because it makes sense to learn more about them and use it on a day to day basis given his current position.

Bokeh

That's right. The product I support, all 4 versions of it runs on IOS, windows, Linux and Solaris. I won't be running more than two vm's maybe 3 at given time. And the discount we get is better than the .edu ones.

docrice

I'm assuming you meant "iOS" as opposed to "IOS." The distinction is subtle, but important.

tbgree00

I'm in a "contest" with myself to get any Macbook I want if I hit 170lbs. I've gone from 230 to 190 this year so it's going to be HARD but impossible. I think in my situation I can make it work. I have a ESXi host for server VMs, GNS3 works on mac supposedly, and I can run a Windows XP or 7 VM in unity mode for vSphere client and OneNote.

I am amazed to see how OSX has caught on in the tech industry. I guess the rise of Web Clients, HTML5, and so on it doesn't matter which endpoint you're using.

Mrock4

It's wise to learn more about them, the next couple of years will be huge for mac's in the enterprise.

ptilsen

That's a nice self-incentive, tbgree00. I love it.

I'm probably getting myself one in July, but I'm not sure what OS I'll use primarily natively. Willing to give OS X a solid chance, but I suspect I'll be in Windows. It's just that it's the best laptop hardware out there. Can't fine that combination of thin, light, and powerful anywhere else, and I think I'm gonna like Retina.

NotHackingYou

If you get the retina, get the max ram. Otherwise, get the base RAM and max it out from OWC.

To answer your question, with 4GB of RAM you are probably looking at 1 VM. However, I'm not sure which macbook you are looking at as neither the pro nor the air start with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD.

I have a 15" rMPB with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. I can easily run 5 Windows VMs and not sacrifice much performance.

ptilsen wrote: »

That's a nice self-incentive, tbgree00. I love it.

I'm probably getting myself one in July, but I'm not sure what OS I'll use primarily natively. Willing to give OS X a solid chance, but I suspect I'll be in Windows. It's just that it's the best laptop hardware out there. Can't fine that combination of thin, light, and powerful anywhere else, and I think I'm gonna like Retina.

Be careful, on my rMPB Windows 7 looks terrible (IMO) when booted natively unless you set the resolution to 2880x1800. Then, I can't read anything unless I set the DPI to 150%. The problem with that is I also like to use 2-4 external 1920x1200 monitors and the DPI at 150% looks terrible on them. I ended up running OSX and using VMWare fusion and run Win7 in Unity mode with 4GB of RAM. It's plenty to run visual studio, SSMS and oneNote/office 2013 - the only Windows programs I can't get on Mac.

Edited to add: Windows looks fine in unity or non unity at 1920x1200 when run as a VM (I run the macbook's screen in 1920x1200 resolution)

Cisco Inferno

The place where I work is primarily Mac units and Linux Servers. At first I was intimidated since I thought I only knew Windows troubleshooting. It turns out that everything you need to do is there but just in different places. It wont take long until you start getting the hang of things. Good Luck

oh and work also gave me this i7 macbook pro with 16gigs and a 256gb ssd. I can't complain.

Many people here also use VMware fusion just like me. In order to test things and do things on windows. Works really well.

tpatt100

I thought the current gen of Macbooks only have 1 RAM slot now? I have two slots with a total of 16GB in it. Single sticks of 16GB ram is crazy expensive.

I keep getting spammed from Razer for that laptop since I use their mouse and gamepad but that is kinda scary to invest money in a company's debut laptop with no prior track record. I experienced how Dell abandons products that don't sell very well.

NetworkingStudent

I’m not trying to hi jack this thread

Why are Macs mainly used for graphic design, web editing, ect instead of Windows?

Also, why do they cost so much more than Windows machines?

DoubleNNs

ptilsen wrote: »

That's a nice self-incentive, tbgree00. I love it.

I'm probably getting myself one in July, but I'm not sure what OS I'll use primarily natively. Willing to give OS X a solid chance, but I suspect I'll be in Windows. It's just that it's the best laptop hardware out there. Can't fine that combination of thin, light, and powerful anywhere else, and I think I'm gonna like Retina.

I tried using Win 7 on my Macbook Air - the drivers weren't very polished. Simply attempting to use the trackpad in Win was a pain and I had to carry around a mouse whenever I switched OSes.
In the end I just put Win XP on a VM in virtual box, just for studying purposes. (A lot of study materials only work on Win)

Mrock4

tpatt- I've got two slots in my MBP. It is not a retina, but I bought it literally 12 months ago (weeks before WWDC where they announced the retina models).

ptilsen

Pretty sure current-gen Retina RAM is soldered on. Not really upgradeable. No question Haswell MBP will be the same, probably both Retina and regular.

tpatt100

Mrock4 wrote: »

tpatt- I've got two slots in my MBP. It is not a retina, but I bought it literally 12 months ago (weeks before WWDC where they announced the retina models).

Yeah I think they dropped to one slot to get the laptops even thinner.

NotHackingYou

I have a 15" retina. There are (2) memory slots and the memory is soldered in. The hard drive is not soldered in but is proprietary. mac-sales will likely offer a replacement soon if not already.

Take a look here for more information:

Teardown of Retina MacBook Pro finds soldered RAM, proprietary SSD

DoubleNNs wrote: »

I tried using Win 7 on my Macbook Air - the drivers weren't very polished. Simply attempting to use the trackpad in Win was a pain and I had to carry around a mouse whenever I switched OSes.
In the end I just put Win XP on a VM in virtual box, just for studying purposes. (A lot of study materials only work on Win)

Did you install the bootcamp drivers? I find the hardware all works very well using the correct bootcamp drivers. I've tried it with the old Core2 duo, i5 and i5 non-retina macbook pros, airs and retina.

DoubleNNs

CarlSaiyed wrote: »

Did you install the bootcamp drivers? I find the hardware all works very well using the correct bootcamp drivers. I've tried it with the old Core2 duo, i5 and i5 non-retina macbook pros, airs and retina.

Yeah, I installed all the bootcamp drivers. Made sure they were all up to date. But the track pad felt very difficult to use for some reason - hard to explain exactly why, especially since I removed the bootcamp partition last fall.

A Win XP VM works better for me for regular activities. Just sucks that I cant get any games to run on it. (Tho I haven't really bothered to put much effort into it.)

NotHackingYou

@DoubleNNS there are some boot camp settings that can help. I turn on the tap to click and then the right corner click as well. It does take a little adjustment to get it to feel as natural as it does in OSX but IME it does work quite well.

Bokeh

Well finally got the MBP. Non retina, decided to save some money. Found it online for 1067 for 13". Apple Store wouldnt match it, Best Buy said no, Micro Center said sure, show us the add. The beat it by a buck. Fine by me, I'd rather shop local then over the net. Time to start loading it up.

gbdavidx

Bokeh wrote: »

Well finally got the MBP. Non retina, decided to save some money. Found it online for 1067 for 13". Apple Store wouldnt match it, Best Buy said no, Micro Center said sure, show us the add. The beat it by a buck. Fine by me, I'd rather shop local then over the net. Time to start loading it up.

my friend used to be a pc person but once he got his job at apple as tech support for apple corp, he hasn't looked back and is a die hard apple fan boy