Parallels Desktop 14
Upgraded virtualization, now with more performance
$79.99 ($49.99 upgrade, $99.99 per year Pro) From Parallels International, parallels.com Needs macOS 10.11.5 or later
The ability to run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems from a Mac with virtualization software is not only cool, it’s a productivity boost for those who juggle multiple platforms for school or work. But virtual machines are notorious for eating up precious resources like storage; a basic Windows installation requires at least 15GB, with our own Windows 10 virtual machine weighing in at upwards of 50GB.
Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac tackles this dilemma in several ways, saving as much as 20GB by providing automatic disk monitoring with ongoing advice to keep things running smoothly. Don’t expect massive decreases from a single virtual machine — instead, savings add up by chipping away at the size of each installed virtual machine. With a total of nine on our iMac, we didn’t come close to saving 20GB, but reclaimed at least a few gigabytes.
While previous versions were capable of manually reclaiming disk space, the option was buried in the settings for each individual virtual machine. This process is now streamlined by Free Up Disk Space in the File menu, which displays all available virtual machines in one place and allows you to quickly manage snapshots (now 15 percent smaller), resume and shut down, reclaim disk space, or archive those that are used infrequently for greater storage reduction.
The application itself is also slimmer by about 150MB (mostly thanks to support documentation moving online), and noticeably faster at starting up — Parallels claims as much as 80 per cent, and we can confirm this is a very real improvement you’ll benefit from every time you use it.
Booting Windows and launching apps installed in those virtual machines is also faster by up to 35 per cent, and there’s a slick option to automatically optimize video memory usage. A resource monitor panel can be summoned from the Window menu to keep tabs on virtual machine CPU and RAM usage in real time. Last but not least, now that macOS Mojave is available, Parallels Desktop 14 likewise offers full support for Apple’s latest, including Dark Mode and running inside a virtual machine.
the bottom line. Worthy upgrade that saves disk space, improves performance, and is just better all-around.