I have a 1TB Fusion Drive 2012 27" iMac which I've partitioned half of it's storage to Windows for me to play games. I'm quickly running out of storage on the Windows side and I've noticed that the Windows side is significantly slower than the Mac side. At first I blamed Windows, but it's more likely due to the fact that Boot Camp can only install windows on the 5200 rpm hdd and it cannot use the SSD in the Fusion Drive.
From what I've read, it's impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to install Windows on an external drive, so I guess I'll just keep Windows on my 5200rpm HDD and move all my games and programs to the external hard drive.
Please don't get too technical, I just want to play games fast. I have two main questions: will an external hard drive even be able to speed up my gaming and if so, what's the best option for my needs? Here's my reasoning for why it may not even help:
I've done some research and know that a Thunderbolt 2 SSD will obviously be the fastest but also quite pricy and not many options. I'm not sure what the point of a 1300MB/s external drive would be when those speeds are bottlenecked to 600MB/s due to the SATA inside my Mac, right? Also, would it be bottlenecked by the 5200rpm HDD or would that data go straight to RAM or the CPU/GPU?
If I can get out the max SATA speed of 600MB/s, that sounds great to me. And if I'm bootlicked to 600MB/s anyway, shouldn't I just go with USB 3.0 since it'll be cheaper and I'll never be able to use the other 400mb/s of Thunderbolt anyway?
What would be the best external drive with about 1TB or more storage? Keep in mind that this has to be compatible with Windows, either out of the box or after having some fun with it in Disc Utility. My Mac is a desktop, so I don't need anything portable or bus-powered.
Thanks in advance!
From what I've read, it's impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to install Windows on an external drive, so I guess I'll just keep Windows on my 5200rpm HDD and move all my games and programs to the external hard drive.
Please don't get too technical, I just want to play games fast. I have two main questions: will an external hard drive even be able to speed up my gaming and if so, what's the best option for my needs? Here's my reasoning for why it may not even help:
I've done some research and know that a Thunderbolt 2 SSD will obviously be the fastest but also quite pricy and not many options. I'm not sure what the point of a 1300MB/s external drive would be when those speeds are bottlenecked to 600MB/s due to the SATA inside my Mac, right? Also, would it be bottlenecked by the 5200rpm HDD or would that data go straight to RAM or the CPU/GPU?
If I can get out the max SATA speed of 600MB/s, that sounds great to me. And if I'm bootlicked to 600MB/s anyway, shouldn't I just go with USB 3.0 since it'll be cheaper and I'll never be able to use the other 400mb/s of Thunderbolt anyway?
What would be the best external drive with about 1TB or more storage? Keep in mind that this has to be compatible with Windows, either out of the box or after having some fun with it in Disc Utility. My Mac is a desktop, so I don't need anything portable or bus-powered.
Thanks in advance!