Qinghai
Level 1 (8 points)
Desktops

Q: VM on Mac

I want to know if it is possible to run VMs on a Mac machine, and how many VMs can run on a MAC? Does Apple provide this support? Does the Mac Server provide the service? Thank you!

Posted on Sep 8, 2016 9:49 PM

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Qinghai

Q: VM on Mac

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  • by K Shaffer,

    K Shaffer K Shaffer Sep 8, 2016 10:18 PM in response to Qinghai
    Level 6 (14,304 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 8, 2016 10:18 PM in response to Qinghai

    Virtual Machines?

     

    • Parallels, VMware, VirtualBox and Boot Camp compared - Features ...

    www.macworld.co.uk › ... › Parallels, VMware, VirtualBox and Boot Camp compared

    Oct 9, 2015 - Your Windows virtual machine can run on the Mac desktop just like any ...

    You can even create a virtual machine that runs OS X itself – which ...


    Also can be used in some instances to run other unix variants, so as to retain

    the ability to start up in macOS; see BootCamp and other software.


    for additional similar topics, see search:

    https://www.google.com/#q=virtual+machines+OS+X

     

    Good luck & happy computing!

  • by dwbrecovery,

    dwbrecovery dwbrecovery Sep 8, 2016 11:20 PM in response to Qinghai
    Level 3 (532 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Sep 8, 2016 11:20 PM in response to Qinghai

    Hi Qinghai,

    - I've used Parallels for a few years now for Windows VMs and Mac VMs without issue.

    - Parallels is a 3rd party product. The amount of installed ram and VM config. determines how many VMs can run.  

    - Typically CPU and SSDs will be factor for performance.

    - I run OS X Server VMs and their services are available to clients.

    http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop      

     

    HTH

    Cheers, dwbrecovery

  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Sep 9, 2016 1:56 AM in response to Qinghai
    Level 6 (9,260 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Sep 9, 2016 1:56 AM in response to Qinghai

    Yes it is possible to run VMs (Virtual Machines) on a Mac. The following are all the currently available options. (In no particular order.)

     

     

    Hypothetically you could also install Windows Server natively via Boot Camp and then use Microsoft's Hyper-V to run virtual machines. This however cannot run Mac virtual machines.

     

    You are allowed to run a maximum of two virtual copies of OS X on a real Mac. You can run as many virtual copies of Linux and/or Windows as you want even at the same time as a couple of virtual Macs instances. Some of the above cannot yet run Mac virtual machines - only Linux or Windows.

     

    The maximum number of VMs you can run will depend on the amount of RAM you have and the number of CPU cores you have. So a Mac Pro with 128GB of RAM and 2 x 6-core CPU processors plus the fact each CPU core does hyper-threading can run lots of VMs. (Greater than twelve.)

     

    Apple's Server software does not provide anything for running VMs, nor does OS X itself. It is possible to run OS X in a VM and it is also possible to run Apple's server software both Server.app and Snow Leopard Server in a VM.