2011 MBP i7 running slow. Hardware limitations?

Question

I have a early 2011 MBP 15" with 2.3 GHz Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 750 GB HD. I purposely put in as much RAM as possible as I usually run a lot of apps simulataneously.
I will usually have either a number of Microsoft Office (2011) programs open at once, Windows 7 64 bit running in Parallels 7 (also running a number of apps), or a combination of both. I have noticed that my computer seems to be running fairly slow, especially given the i7 processor and the RAM upgrade. When booting up windows in parallels, it can sometimes take upwards of 15 minutes to get the windows side of things to work. While windows is booting up, the mac side tends to be extremely slow, pinwheeling quite a bit. Additionally, Microsoft Outlook 2011 is almost unusable on the mac side of things (I realize this may be a result of the software). Even after  shut down Windows, the mac side can still tend to run fairly slow.
750 GB HD with 100 GB partitions for Windows. WIndows HD is 70GB/100GB used.
Designated 4GB RAM for mac side/4GB for windows.
When viewing activity monitor, the processors are rarely above 50%, usually down around 10%, or less. RAM is almost always fully utilized (less than 20MB free).
My question is: do you think this is a software related issue, as it relates to windows/parrallels/microsoft programs? Or is this a hardware limited issue? Do I need more RAM? Could I possible benefit from an SSD/Hybrid drive? I use my computer for work and for personal use, so it is essential that I am able to use both Windows and Mac simultaneously.
Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

Also... be sure to balance your allocation of RAM between your Windows virtual machine and OS X.  If you allocate too much to your virtual machine, OS X will take a significant performance hit... which would in-turn cause your virtual machine to slow to a crawl.  Depending on what you're doing, you should probably not set your virtual machine to more than 4GB.  The amount of RAM you allocate to the virtual machine is basically taken whether you need it or not.  For example, if you allocate 6GB to your virtual machine, as soon as you launch the virtual machine, regardless of what applications you are running in it, only 2GB will be available to OS X.  Making sure both OS X and your virtual machine have enough RAM allocated to them is important.
If you're RAM has been balanced in your settings for your virtual machine and your performance is still poor, you may need to go with more RAM.  8GB is generally more than enough for most people, but your usage / expectations are on the high side.  Keeping in mind everything you have running... opening this applications, modifying this file, etc... you're also working your hard drive pretty hard.  An SSD would make a significant difference in performance.  Of course there is a premium associated with a high capacity SSD (which I would imagine you would want).