Hi everyone,
I have a MacBook Air with M4 Chip 10 Core CPU and 24GB unified memory.
would it be suitable to install VMware Fusion and run a virtual machines on this configuration? I'm mainly concerned about performance, capabilities with Apple silicon, and whether the MacBook Air (fanless design) can handle sustained vm workloads efficiently
Has anyone tested similar setup?
I'd appreciate you feedback and recommendations
I use VMware Fusion on the same machine and it works quite well for Windows 11 as well as several Linux distributions.
You no longer need a Windows 11 Preview version to install Windows.
That only applied to Windows 10. Windows 11 fully supports ARM processors as there are many PCs that have moved to the ARM processors.
One thing you do need to be aware of is hardware drivers. If you are using any devices that require drivers, they will need to be drivers for ARM based processors. While some manufacturers have added ARM support many have not. So you may need to check the vendors for any devices which you plan to use. The Intel translation layer (much like Apple's Rosetta2) does not apply to drivers, only running applications.
I use VMware Fusion on the same machine and it works quite well for Windows 11 as well as several Linux distributions.
You no longer need a Windows 11 Preview version to install Windows.
That only applied to Windows 10. Windows 11 fully supports ARM processors as there are many PCs that have moved to the ARM processors.
One thing you do need to be aware of is hardware drivers. If you are using any devices that require drivers, they will need to be drivers for ARM based processors. While some manufacturers have added ARM support many have not. So you may need to check the vendors for any devices which you plan to use. The Intel translation layer (much like Apple's Rosetta2) does not apply to drivers, only running applications.
That's really going to depend on what kind of VM you're running and how heavy the workload in it is...
Keep in mind that if you want to run a Windows VM, you will need to use the ARM preview of Windows 11. You can't run an intel based OS in a VM on an M series processor.
Based on my understanding, running VMware Fusion on a MacBook Air (M4, 24GB RAM) should not cause any hardware issues and it is not harmful.
VMware Fusion performance on MacBook Air M4 for VMs
