Bootcamp vs. VMWare Fusion 6 vs. Parallels 9: Excel w/large data sets (250,000+ rows)

[smileman]

I tried using 2011 Excel on my 2013 retina 15" MacBook Pro (2.0GHz, 16GB RAM) and it quickly bogged down and became unusable with a spreadsheet containing 250,000+ rows.


I expect in the future I will work with even larger quantities of data and may push up against the Excel limit of a 1 million+ rows. But that is for another day and hopefully 2014 Office for Mac will be out next month.


In the meantime, I need to decide on whether to install Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 on my Mac via either Bootcamp, VMWare Fusion 6, or Parallels 9. I need maximum Excel performance.


I demoed Parallels 9 and while I didn't get a chance to test drive Excel I wasn't very impressed with how Parallels handled Windows. I have heard better about VMWare, and it does appear better from my initial impressions, but again haven't had a chance to try Excel as I don't want to install Office and use my key until I've made a decision (unless I can use the same Office key in VMWare, Parallels and Bootcamp? My understanding is that I am restricted to two installs?)


I've read that Bootcamp could perform the best of the three given that Windows runs native. However, I've also read that Apple hasn't done a thorough job updating the drivers and that things like the trackpad may not work, or work as well, as using a virtual machine. And then there are the other advantages of using a virtual machine, such as being able to to switch back to my Mac apps.


Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[RoryA]

If performance is key I would (and do) use BootCamp. I also wouldn't use 2013 - I'd use 2010 if you can. My experience of 2013 to date has been that pretty much everything seems to be slower.

 

[smileman]

If performance is key I would (and do) use BootCamp. I also wouldn't use 2013 - I'd use 2010 if you can. My experience of 2013 to date has been that pretty much everything seems to be slower.

Thanks, that's helpful.

Interesting about 2010 - can anyone else confirm if 2010 Excel is better for large datasets? I did use 2010 Excel 32-bit on a Windows 7 desktop PC on the same spreadsheet with 250,000+ rows and it actually handled pretty well.

Now wondering if I should also be installing Windows 7 instead of 8 via bootcamp?

 

[RoryA]

I've found the performance of Win8.1 to be fine - I just don't like the interface, unless it's with a touch screen, so I stick to Win7 generally. If you have big data sets (I don't really regard 250k as that big), it's worth having a 64bit environment, especially if you want to use PowerPivot which seems, by most accounts, to be better in 64 bit than 32. Of course if you rely on non-standard controls, 64bit is out and if you use API calls you need to redo those to be compatible.

Edit: I should add that I do also use Fusion for VM work and it's great - it's only really when I need all available resources that I use BootCamp.