Mac unusable after done with VM.

[objectref]

Hi,

i read the "Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings" topic before i started this thread but i still have the following "problem":

I run VMWare Fusion 5 (and 4 and 3 before) on a Macbook Pro mid 2010 (Core i5, non-SSD hard disk, 8GB Ram, 15.4") with Mountain Lion. The VM is Windows 7 x64 (i also tried Windows 8 x64). I give 2 cores on the VM and  2048MB of RAM. It runs just fine, the problem is that if i use the VM for some time, when i end the session and close Fusion, everything on Mountain Lion is so slowly accessed that i have to reboot the machine to correct things up.

I mean, even the "Activity Monitor" is taking forever to start, let alone much-much bigger projects like Xcode. You click the program to open and just wait forever. Activity monitor shows that from the 8GB of Ram, i have only 15MB left(!) and it seems that it runs to the pagefile back and forth all the time.

So i have to reboot because the machine is nearly unusable. I understand that mbp's hdd is not the faster disk in the world and that by using the VM all it's cashes have been thashed but i am wondering if it has something to do with the settings i give to the VM (more/less RAM etc).

Have anyone some workable suggestion for that specific machine/VM i have so i can try out ?

Thanks a lot for any help!

edit: forgot to say how i actually *use* the whole system: I use the Windows VM only for Visual Studio. Everything else (email, browsing etc etc) are all running on Mountain Lion.

[Shawshank]

if i use the VM for some time, when i end the session and close Fusion, everything on Mountain Lion is so slowly accessed ...

Do you mean that your Mac responds normally while the VM is running but slows down only after you quit Fusion? If so, I have no idea what's going wrong.

If the response is already slow while Fusion is running (after using the VM for a while, of course), and if the Activity Monitor shows that there is very few Free memory (green) but lots of Inactive memory (blue), then the disk buffer might be a possible cause of the slowing down.

Go to Settings > Advanced, and try setting Hard disk buffering to Disabled.

According to the help document, Automatic should be equivalent to Disabled for Win7 guest, but in my experience choosing Disabled had different effect from Automatic.

I experience a similar slowing down (Lion+Fusion4+Win7) especially when an anti-virus software on Win7 is doing a "full scan", which reads all the files in the Win7 VM and uses all the memory on my Mac as a disk buffer (Inactive memory).

[objectref]

Hi Shawshank,

thanks for the reply!

I do not have my mbp in fron of me now, but i think the situation is as you described: After using the VM for a while, Mac's response gets slower and slower and Activity Monitor shows things the way you say here.

I will make the adjustment you mentioned at night, when i get back home and report here the result.

Thanks again!

[objectref]

Ok,

Shawshank: I change it to "Disabled", as you told me, and i now have a really different (and workable) system! I can use Mac-relative stuff after *and* during running of VM without the problem i described!

Also, i think the whole system runs cooler now, i.e., i do not hear the fans as much as before...

In a nutshell: Thank you very much!!

:smileyhappy:

[StudioGuy]

Wow - great find! I had the same issue using Win 8 and Fusion 4. Changing to "disabled" stopped a lot of Mac slowness.

I know it's supposed to be "just fine" to have all free memory gone and in "inactive" state, but the requesting program still has to request it back I expect, and it doesn't seem to be as seemless as one would hope - definitely delays on the Mac side when this was on the "automatic" setting.

Bravo!