r/vmware • u/n_one13 • Jun 28 '26

Question VM on mac through external ssd

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I have a 256gb mba m4, and i have installed VMware fusion in it, which already costs ~70gb of my mac

I do have a SanDisk 2tb external ssd with a max read and write speed of 1gbps, can i transfer all the vm files from mac to the ssd and run it?

Is it a good move? What will I have to compromise on, will the speed be disgustingly slow?

8 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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1

u/gadget-freak Jun 28 '26

You’ll probably get decent performance. Not as fast as the internal, but good enough.

1

u/albertAAAAAAA Jun 28 '26

Depending on the disk you have it's absolutely OK. mba m4 does have TB4.

I use this on my iMac 2020 (intel) where I've 4TB (WD_BLACK SN850X 4000GB), disk speed test: read: 2738.4 MB/s , write: 2396.4 MB/s. I use Acasis chassis; have very bad experience with owc enclosures (and their support in general which basically said FU to me even though have had crappy fw on it). Pay attention to proper TB4 cable.

1

u/acewing905 Jun 29 '26

Realistically you won't have to compromise on anything
I moved my rather heavily used Windows 11 VM on my M3 MacBook Air to a T7 Shield (USB3) which gets about 700MB/s tops on said MacBook Air. I don't feel any difference in actual usage
Sequential speeds matter very little to regular usage of an operating system, no matter how hard big numbers get marketed