Budget 51-70k Can I Install Windows + VS + SQL Server in 128GB Macbook Air?

krishnandu

krishnandu

Skilled
Hi, I'm thinking of buying Macbook Air, but as I'm a .NET Developer I need to install Windows in it (Either via Boot Camp or Parallels Desk).

For everything else, I'll shift to Mac but I'll install only Visual Studio 2013, MS SQL Server 2012 within Windows.

I even plan to start developing in XCode in Mac.

And yeah, I'm aware that I can't use MBA SSD and like I do in PC HDD. So I'll store all the Music and other files in External HDD. But the project files needs to be within MBA.

So can you guys (specially if one of you have 128GB MBA) please suggest me, whether there'll be sufficient space to do the same? Or should I go for 256GB one (though it's out of my budget)?
 
You will definitely be cramped for space although its not impossible.

Windows 7 SP1 64 Bit : 28~30 GB
Visual Studio 2013 : 10~12 GB
SQL Server 2012 : 4~6 GB

You should have a 50~60 GB Partition at least for windows to leave some breathing room. Rest you can keep for Mac OS.

With regard to using Boot camp or Parallels, do note the difference between the two. With boot camp you crate a separate partition for windows and run windows directly utilizing the full power of the hardware. Parallels Desktop relies on Virtualization technology. So you are basically running Windows on top of Mac OS as a virtual machine and you will be sharing resources of your machine while running one OS already. So there will be obvious performance cost involved (despite Accelerated Virtualization features). You can also use Virtual Box if you are fine with Virtualization and you have the option of a dynamically growing disk image for the Windows OS. Not sure if Parallels also support this.
 
Thanks @Lord Nemesis Well I'm aware about the difference between Boot Camp and Parallels. If needed I can install Windows on external HDD with VirtualBox. In that case I can carry the disk anywhere and connect to any PC to access my data.
 
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