iMac with MBA as boot ssd?

[kjid]

Hello,

While I was looking into buying a thunderbolt enclosure + SSD disk for my iMac and MBA to use as my boot drive the following idea came to mind:

Can I use my MBA's SSD as boot drive for both macs? I would connect the MBA to my iMac while at my desk and boot it in target disk mode.

Disadvantages I can come up with are:

• I would have to shutdown both machines before taking the MBA with me
• The MBA gets quite warm while I tried this setup. Is the overheat-prevention still active while it's just running as target disk?
• The difference in resolutions at 27" and 11,6" can get windows half, or completely of my screen when using the air.

Advantages:

• Speed increase on iMac
• Synced OS X
• Ability to sync iPhone and iPad with both macs

The main concern I've got is the heat while using MBA in target disk mode.
And also I'm not sure if firmware updates can mess up the boot drive..?

If anyone has experience with such a setup I'd love to hear them.

 

[old-wiz]

I shudder at the thought of trying to use the same SSD as a boot for different macs, shifting back and forth. OS coherency, applications...ewww.

 

[kjid]

I don't mind having the excact same apps on both machines. It's what I kind of have right now.

 

[old-wiz]

I don't mind having the excact same apps on both machines. It's what I kind of have right now.

I was thinking more in terms of OS coherency. I just shudder at the thought of two different machines booting back and forth from the same boot device.

 

[eddjedi]

Yeah I'm fairly sure each different Mac has its own drivers for all kinds of things such as the display/GPU, interfaces etc. Hence why you can't install an iMac restore DVD on a Macbook. It might work, but almost certainly not optimally.

 

[bogatyr]

Other people do the same thing. This is my plan when I pick up my iMac to avoid syncing information.

 

[kjid]

Should I just go ahead and do it untill drivers mess up? Not sure what to do here hehe