External disk for iMac running windows

[JanKrulak]

Dear All,

I have a specific question and I wonder whether anyone here could advice me.

I use iMac Pro (2017), 3GHz 10-Core Intel Xeon W, 128 GB 266 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16GB, 1TB Flash storage.

Is it possible having an external disk in order to install Windows 10 and run it through it? Currently I use Parallel Desktop for running Windows 10 but it does not give me a full capacity of the machine, it's quite limited.

Also, I would like to ask whether it would slow iMac down by using Windows on the external drive? I know about Boot Camp but it's annoying to switch between operating systems.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Kind regards,

Jan

 

[MacRS4]

It is possible to install Windows 10 on an external USB drive - there's a few hoops to jump through however. As to whether it would slow your machine down - well, the USB Drive won't be as fast as your internal drive (probably up to 1GB/s compared to nearly 3GB/s for the internal SSD), and I don't think you can install Windows on to an external Thunderbolt 3 drive?

I could be wrong on that last bit. If you could install on to an external Samsung X5 for example, the performance would be more similar to the internal drive.

 

[JanKrulak]

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

Jan

 

[MacRS4]

This is interesting on the installing to a TB3 drive. I may give it a go as I have some of these Samsung X5 units kicking around.

 

[JanKrulak]

Outcome of your research would be very useful.

Many thanks!

Jan