Dear members
Can I enlist your help and advice? I have been scouring the forums for a bit more insight before posting but haven't been able to answer my questions.
I am currently using Mac OS 10.5.5 on a MB 2.2 GHz with 4Gb RAM. Fusion version is 2.0.1 and runs exceptionally well. Windows OS is currently XP Home.
I use Windows to be able to develop solutions for customers in MS Access (2003 flavour). One of my apps has been moderately successful and I have started to run it on behalf of multiple clients. Fusion was an ideal solution as each of the clients can have a virtual machine running the database with each customers personalised information. The Access databases are large (around 1.6Gb spread across multiple .mdb files). Running them in their own virtual machines makes development easy as I can do that on a test VM and then transfer the revised .mdb file across to the other VMs without losing linked table references (Access uses the full directory path to locate linked tables, so changing the directory / logical drive is a (small) hassle).
Here is the question - I'm asking for opinions and ideas, I appreciate you can't give a detailed answer - what is the best set up?
I'm considering four options:
1. Do nothing and continue with the MB (although my 320Gb internal disk is getting full and running a VM on a USB external is a bit painful)
2. Upgrade to a Mac Pro (changing the guest OS to XP Pro/Vista) and using 8Gb RAM (and probably 2/4 virtual processors)
3. Redesign the architecture so that all clients run within one Guest OS and run it on Bootcamp (could be either the MB or MacPro)
4. As an extension of 3, run it on a dedicated Windows machine.
Ultimately, I'd like to be able to bring down my processing time as some of my SQL is quite complicated and requires both processing power and disk speed.
Any opinions welcome.
My kind regards,
markdas
