Install Windows on external SSD

[SaSaSushi]

Now if you want real speed, the price of NVME Thunderbolt 3 external drives like this one from Plugable are starting to come down. It's too bad they don't have a 250GB model. Not only are these recognized as true PCI-e but they perform almost as well as the Apple internal SSD (2400+ MB/s read and 1200+MB/s write).
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As I alluded to in my post above, why go to the expense of a TB enclosure when a standard USB3 one with UASP does just as well. Here, the bottleneck is the SATA SSD drive, not the interface. Now, if we were talking about nVME, then that is a different matter!

I bought the Delock about 3 and a half years ago and used it to boot my Late 2013 iMac (1TB Fusion Drive). Only after upgrading to the 2017 iMac with a 512GB SSD did I convert the Delock with its Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD fully to BootCamp duty. I like the ease of installation with Thunderbolt but I agree that the process of installing via USB isn't too difficult. There are other reasons I prefer Thunderbolt like the ability to use TRIM commands and flash SSD firmware, etc. At least in MacOS neither of those are possible for SSDs in USB enclosures.

 

[imacken]

Yes, the Plugable has really come down in price. Another £50-100 and I'm there!
Trim works OK with SATA SSDs in Windows. Never sure about macOS though.

 

[Fancuku]

Newegg has the 250GB WD Blue SSD for $65

 

[rjsounds]

Newegg has the 250GB WD Blue SSD for $65

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Yeah just a regular old run o the mill ssd will do the trick, don't need the blazing speed of Nvme or anything. As I said, the sole purpose is just so I can play some games on windows.

That WD blue would be great... So something like that would just need a thunderbolt enclosure with a tb3 cable to seal the deal?

I really appreciate everyone's comments as I try to make sense of all this.

-Internal SSDs require enclosures.
-External SSDs already come with an enclosure but would need to find one with the right connector, i.e. USB3 or TB3.
-the reason why TB3 was suggested here is that windows can easily be installed this way, simply by choosing the SSD as the install location.

I think I'm following all of this correctly right?

 

[bwintx]

I've always done it the easy way. HDD or SSD inside a thunderbolt enclosure works every time for me. Windows sees the TB enclosure as internal PCIe device so it will let you install directly to it just like it would in any PC.
I create a USB Windows install media from another Windows computer and install it directly to the TB ssd.

I do download Bootcamp drivers and install them after the Windows installation so everything (bluetooth, wi-fi, etc).

Just seeing this months later. So, to clarify: the procedure would be the following?
(1.) Mount an external TB3 drive on the Mac.
(2.) Using a Windows PC, create a bootable Windows 10 install device on a USB thumb drive.
(3.) Mount the bootable USB thumb drive on the Mac.
(4.) Reboot the Mac; hold down Option to choose startup disk, and select the bootable USB thumb drive, which then opens in Windows.
(5.) Use the Windows installer on the thumb drive to install Windows on the external TB3 drive.
(6.) Following installation, install Boot Camp drivers on the external TB3 drive. (Suggested correct procedure for that, BTW? Can Boot Camp be used to do this even though it‘s not “talking” to a Mac partition as usual?)

And, finally: if all of that is right, is this now a Windows installation that Windows 10 will update as needed?

TIA for whatever help you or anyone else can provide. I’ve posted elsewhere but am getting no answers to this.

 

[thachhuynh]

I'm sorry. Can we split external SSD into multiple partitions and just install Windows on one partition, so we can use the rest for other data?


PHẢN HỒI

 

[Toledospod]

I'm sorry. Can we split external SSD into multiple partitions and just install Windows on one partition, so we can use the rest for other data?


PHẢN HỒI

Don't think anyone else will see this thread as its really really old. I did have to see it myself while looking through here though.

To answer your question, yes you can partition an SSD if you want, but if you're used APFS on newer MacOS, then its easier to just ad a volume instead of a partition (thats what I did when I wanted to add another OS on my current internal hard drive (which isn't an SSD)