I run my startup on a MBP with multiple VMs. It's been a love/hate affair with VirtualBox, but so far I manage to live with the shortcomings. Can't argue with free. Tried Parallel early on when truly frustrated, but found it doesn't add much over VBox to justify the price. Here are a few tips that I live by:
1. Obviously, never put critical data on a VM not matter how stable it seems. Definitely have Dropbox installed.
2. Make it a good habit to pause the VM before you pack up and go or switch to a different network. When turning it back on, disconnect the network interface then reconnect.
3. When the UI freezes, you can rescue on a Mac with AppleKey+F6 (or a few other Func keys) to another tty console. Login there and reboot. After you get the VM back, VBox likes it when you do a proper reboot before you resume working.
4. Take snapshot regularly, definitely right after you just checkin a major chunk of code!
1. Obviously, never put critical data on a VM not matter how stable it seems. Definitely have Dropbox installed.
2. Make it a good habit to pause the VM before you pack up and go or switch to a different network. When turning it back on, disconnect the network interface then reconnect.
3. When the UI freezes, you can rescue on a Mac with AppleKey+F6 (or a few other Func keys) to another tty console. Login there and reboot. After you get the VM back, VBox likes it when you do a proper reboot before you resume working.
4. Take snapshot regularly, definitely right after you just checkin a major chunk of code!