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Bootcamp On External SSD?
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Just used the VirtualBox route and a Monster Digital 240GB SSD Thunderbolt on a new Macbook Air. Zero Windows installation on the internal SSD and Windows installed and runs perfectly. And still have all USB ports available.
The virtualbox trick is to make a file on your Mac that represents the virtual harddrive. Except you tell Virtualbox, from the command line, to direct all writes to that file to instead go to a raw harddisk (in this case the external Thunderbolt drive). You start up Virtualbox with the Windows 10 ISO DVD image loaded and go through the install sequence. At the end, it will say Windows needs to reboot and that's where you pause Virtualbox. Kill Virtualbox, shutdown the Mac and hold Option when rebooting. The external harddrive will now show as a bootable drive and because it's Thunderbolt, it will be seen as a 100% legit SATA drive. No need to dick around with Windows to "force" it to work on a USB drive. Oh, first you need to run the Bootcamp Wizard to copy the Mac drivers over to a FAT formatted USB stick, which you will need after Windows installs and boots. Everything works perfectly after that, WiFi, trackpad, etc.
$150 for a 240GB SSD Thunderbolt drive is a damn fine deal.
https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Digi...8477455&sr=8-1&keywords=monster+digital+240gb
Instructions over at OWC/Macsales
https://blog.macsales.com/40947-tech-tip-how-to-use-boot-camp-on-an-external-drive
[doublepost=1518479215][/doublepost]Booting from the Monster Thunderbolt SSD
The virtualbox trick is to make a file on your Mac that represents the virtual harddrive. Except you tell Virtualbox, from the command line, to direct all writes to that file to instead go to a raw harddisk (in this case the external Thunderbolt drive). You start up Virtualbox with the Windows 10 ISO DVD image loaded and go through the install sequence. At the end, it will say Windows needs to reboot and that's where you pause Virtualbox. Kill Virtualbox, shutdown the Mac and hold Option when rebooting. The external harddrive will now show as a bootable drive and because it's Thunderbolt, it will be seen as a 100% legit SATA drive. No need to dick around with Windows to "force" it to work on a USB drive. Oh, first you need to run the Bootcamp Wizard to copy the Mac drivers over to a FAT formatted USB stick, which you will need after Windows installs and boots. Everything works perfectly after that, WiFi, trackpad, etc.
$150 for a 240GB SSD Thunderbolt drive is a damn fine deal.
https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Digi...8477455&sr=8-1&keywords=monster+digital+240gb
Instructions over at OWC/Macsales
https://blog.macsales.com/40947-tech-tip-how-to-use-boot-camp-on-an-external-drive
[doublepost=1518479215][/doublepost]Booting from the Monster Thunderbolt SSD
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
I tried the virtual box method but Windows refused to load onto the GPT "formatted" SSD. So I installed bootcamp as per normal (on the internal SSD), then booted into Windows.
Within Windows, I used disparted to "format" the SSD (GPT partitioning, 200MB fat32 EFI partition, and the rest as NTFS partition) then used winToUSB (free version) to copy Windows onto the external SSD. Once complete, I returned to macOS and removed bootcamp from the internal SSD.
There are several very good articles on the net to do this.
Within Windows, I used disparted to "format" the SSD (GPT partitioning, 200MB fat32 EFI partition, and the rest as NTFS partition) then used winToUSB (free version) to copy Windows onto the external SSD. Once complete, I returned to macOS and removed bootcamp from the internal SSD.
There are several very good articles on the net to do this.
Just used the VirtualBox route and a Monster Digital 240GB SSD Thunderbolt on a new Macbook Air. Zero Windows installation on the internal SSD and Windows installed and runs perfectly. And still have all USB ports available.
The virtualbox trick is to make a file on your Mac that represents the virtual harddrive. Except you tell Virtualbox, from the command line, to direct all writes to that file to instead go to a raw harddisk (in this case the external Thunderbolt drive). You start up Virtualbox with the Windows 10 ISO DVD image loaded and go through the install sequence. At the end, it will say Windows needs to reboot and that's where you pause Virtualbox. Kill Virtualbox, shutdown the Mac and hold Option when rebooting. The external harddrive will now show as a bootable drive and because it's Thunderbolt, it will be seen as a 100% legit SATA drive. No need to dick around with Windows to "force" it to work on a USB drive. Oh, first you need to run the Bootcamp Wizard to copy the Mac drivers over to a FAT formatted USB stick, which you will need after Windows installs and boots. Everything works perfectly after that, WiFi, trackpad, etc.
$150 for a 240GB SSD Thunderbolt drive is a damn fine deal.
https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Digi...8477455&sr=8-1&keywords=monster+digital+240gb
Instructions over at OWC/Macsales
https://blog.macsales.com/40947-tech-tip-how-to-use-boot-camp-on-an-external-drive
[doublepost=1518479215][/doublepost]Booting from the Monster Thunderbolt SSD
I have a 2014 Retina Fusion iMac and I tried the instructions in that article on my Samsung USB 3 drive and no dice. I got up to the part "Kill Virtualbox, shutdown the Mac and hold Option when rebooting." When hold down option key I got the open to boot into windows and then I couldn't get any further. I couldn't remember exactly the error message as this was a few days ago but it was a black DOS screen and said something about not being able to read and "press any key to exit" which didn't let me exit so I had to manually reboot. After looking into the comments the USB 3 method is choked full of issues which I don't even want to mess around with. I'm considering buying a Thunderbolt external and trying again.
1. What type of speeds do you get with that Thunderbolt drive?
2. The drive you posted from Amazon is a great deal. I'm trying to decide to go for that or just spend the money on a bigger drive. I kind of hate getting drives on the smaller side and then realizing they are a bit small long term. Just to be clear when using the Thunderbolt method are you able to read additional external drives? For example i should be able to boot into windows and then plug in my external Samsung USB 3 drive and read it? Also which OS are you using? Sierra or High Sierra?
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Here are some pictures of benchmark on the Thunderbolt SSD as well as copy speed moving files from USB3 to Thunderbolt. The USB3 is a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, though the USB3 enclosure is not a high performance enclosure.
This is on most up to date OSX, High Sierra.
Here are some pictures of benchmark on the Thunderbolt SSD as well as copy speed moving files from USB3 to Thunderbolt. The USB3 is a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, though the USB3 enclosure is not a high performance enclosure.
This is on most up to date OSX, High Sierra.
Thats pretty decent speeds. Thanks for checking. Thats a viable solution. I'm trying to think if i should get the 256GB drive you posted which is the best deal or go for a 512GB one https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-51...ywords=Transcend+StoreJet+500+Thunderbolt+SSD But if I have external storage it's probably not an issue anyway with the 256gb
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Just used the VirtualBox route and a Monster Digital 240GB SSD Thunderbolt on a new Macbook Air. Zero Windows installation on the internal SSD and Windows installed and runs perfectly. And still have all USB ports available.
The virtualbox trick is to make a file on your Mac that represents the virtual harddrive. Except you tell Virtualbox, from the command line, to direct all writes to that file to instead go to a raw harddisk (in this case the external Thunderbolt drive). You start up Virtualbox with the Windows 10 ISO DVD image loaded and go through the install sequence. At the end, it will say Windows needs to reboot and that's where you pause Virtualbox. Kill Virtualbox, shutdown the Mac and hold Option when rebooting. The external harddrive will now show as a bootable drive and because it's Thunderbolt, it will be seen as a 100% legit SATA drive. No need to dick around with Windows to "force" it to work on a USB drive. Oh, first you need to run the Bootcamp Wizard to copy the Mac drivers over to a FAT formatted USB stick, which you will need after Windows installs and boots. Everything works perfectly after that, WiFi, trackpad, etc.
$150 for a 240GB SSD Thunderbolt drive is a damn fine deal.
https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Digi...8477455&sr=8-1&keywords=monster+digital+240gb
Instructions over at OWC/Macsales
https://blog.macsales.com/40947-tech-tip-how-to-use-boot-camp-on-an-external-drive
[doublepost=1518479215][/doublepost]Booting from the Monster Thunderbolt SSD
Ok I purchased 240gb Thunderbolt you listed and I ran into the exact same error as I had when trying to do this with USB3 SSD. This is definitely not an easy method as I think I have spent 8 hours already over 2 separate days trying to get this to work between the USB3 SSD and now the Thunderbolt SSD. The issue is that when I reboot MacOS and hold option key to boot into Windows it does recognize that there is a Windows installation on the external but I get a black DOS screen with the error “no bootable device – insert boot disk and press any key”. I’m stuck in this windows and have to hit the power button to exit.
I followed the instructions closely. I was able to create the bootcamp.vmdk using terminal. I was able to launch Virtual Box and have it install Windows 10 to the external SSD and I exited the installed before the automatic reboot started. Looking through the comments it states you much enable EFI in the virtualbox settings and that the drive MUST be formatted using GUID, not MBR. this will set up the EFI partition that will be required. I’ll see if I can try this tonight. This is definitely a lot more work than I imagined. Hopefully I can get this to work but it amazing how many comments show that there are lots of issues with this. I am using a 2014 iMac fusion drive. Next iMac is going to be a huge SSD so I can avoid this because while I might be able to get this to work at some point I can see this is a very flimsy method that might break depending on either MacOS updates or Windows updates. It seems like a very cool method if you can get it working.
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When you enable EFI, Windows should default to GUID partition. It will make like 4 different partitions (3 small ones, 1 big one). Be sure to completely wipe out the MBR partitions during setup. So it’s all unformatted or unallocated space. Then hit new and it should chop it up automatically.
I couldn't get it the EFI part working.
Basically I had to resort to this video and purchase Winclone which is a lot easier but even with that it wasn't completely easy. Basically you are installing bootcamp on your Mac's internal drive, then you use Winclone to copy it over to the external thunderbolt drive and then you delete the Bootcamp partition on your Mac. The neat thing is you can save an image of your Windows image so you can restore easy.
Note if anyone is following instructions from the below video you might need to do the following if you get a blue window with a recovery error ..... the last step before you launch into bootcamp on your thunderbolt drive is to make sure you right click your bootcamp partition "Make EFI Bootable"
Anyway at least it's working now and its quite fast.
Glad you we're able to get it working! What I ended up doing was making a 20GB partition on the Thunderbolt drive that is exFAT. Then I can copy stuff to it from either OS.
You can "shrink" the Windows partition now that it's setup. Do it through Computer Management -> Disk Management.
Thats an interesting idea. I'm probably just going to do is rely on a USB3 Samsung 2TB drive and purchase Paragon HSF+ for $20. I've been testing it in trial and it's working really well. So i pretty much have all my files/videos/music/docs..etc on the USB3 drive if I want to access it in either OS.
For those considering a purchase of Winclone (mentioned above), you can do cloning of the bootcamp installed Windows partition using the free version of winToUSB. Helps save a bit of money.
I'd only used it on USB, but there are instructions here: https://www.michaeljjensen.com/removablewindowsonmac/ that explicitly mention the use of winToUSB on either USB or Thunderbolt.
Can anyone confirm that running Boot Camp on an external drive using the methods listed here will work just as well as running on the internal drive? Are there any strange bugs/issues/problems you should expect when doing this? For example, should I expect problems with macOS or Windows updates? Does the Boot Camp software (drivers, Control Panel, Restart in macOS) run properly whilst running on external SSD?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I been running windows 10 on a thunderbolt hard drive on my iMac for 2 years now. Never a problem
I replaced the Disk in my Lenovo labtop with the SSD and did a fresh install of windows 64bit.
After install I copied bootcamp to the desktop.
I removed the disk and placed it in my Inatek usb3 enclosure. Restarted from the external disk and installed the bootcamp
software, couldn’t be easier. Imac late 2013, i7, GTX780m
After install I copied bootcamp to the desktop.
I removed the disk and placed it in my Inatek usb3 enclosure. Restarted from the external disk and installed the bootcamp
software, couldn’t be easier. Imac late 2013, i7, GTX780m
I dual booted macOS Mojave and Windows 10 1903 on an external SSD by using Winclone volume to volume from an internal fresh installation. Some of these methods seem much easier than what I went through, but in anyone needs another method (or got stuck booting to Windows when using Winclone), I will post mine (especially since Apple Discussions removed my post [because I linked to superuser.com? Because it requires using Linux? Because MS doesn't officially support booting externally? I'm not sure.]). It requires Winclone, a computer or virtual machine running Linux and enough space internally to install Windows at least temporarily (30GBs usually)
• Format external SSD as GUID with APFS macOS partition and exFAT Windows Partition
• Install macOS off Recovery Partition onto the external SSD
• Install Windows on internal HDD. (when it gets to the setup screen, you can safely shutdown Windows with the shortcut shift-fn-f10 to bring up a cmd prompt and type "shutdown -s -t 00" then boot back into macOS).
• Use the utility Winclone (http://twocanoes.com/) (paid software) to do volume to volume cloning of Windows internally to external.
I then was able to boot into Windows but got a boot error.
I finally was able to get Windows to boot to the desktop after:
• On a Linux virtual machine (I used mint), use the steps on https://superuser.com/questions/808953/running-windows-8-on-external-hdd
Note that you must enter the { and }
Verify that 0x14 is actually set
Then boot. If you still have issues, use Winclone to toggle EFI and Classic boots.
You will need to disable SIP to do this
Go to recovery mode and type in the Terminal
csrutil disable
Make sure to re-enable when you are finished (type csrutil enable in the same terminal)
Finally, select Windows partition from Startup Disk settings on macOS and click Restart
I did this on a 2013 iMac with a Samsung SSD and in Crystal Disk Mark it is about as fast as my 2013 MacBook Pro with internal SSD. Can finally play AAA games without lag.
• Format external SSD as GUID with APFS macOS partition and exFAT Windows Partition
• Install macOS off Recovery Partition onto the external SSD
• Install Windows on internal HDD. (when it gets to the setup screen, you can safely shutdown Windows with the shortcut shift-fn-f10 to bring up a cmd prompt and type "shutdown -s -t 00" then boot back into macOS).
• Use the utility Winclone (http://twocanoes.com/) (paid software) to do volume to volume cloning of Windows internally to external.
I then was able to boot into Windows but got a boot error.
I finally was able to get Windows to boot to the desktop after:
• On a Linux virtual machine (I used mint), use the steps on https://superuser.com/questions/808953/running-windows-8-on-external-hdd
Note that you must enter the { and }
Verify that 0x14 is actually set
Then boot. If you still have issues, use Winclone to toggle EFI and Classic boots.
You will need to disable SIP to do this
Go to recovery mode and type in the Terminal
csrutil disable
Make sure to re-enable when you are finished (type csrutil enable in the same terminal)
Finally, select Windows partition from Startup Disk settings on macOS and click Restart
I did this on a 2013 iMac with a Samsung SSD and in Crystal Disk Mark it is about as fast as my 2013 MacBook Pro with internal SSD. Can finally play AAA games without lag.
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