Replacing OS X with Windows 10 and making OS X secondary

[benweston88]

Hi all

I own a 2013 Retina MacBook Pro and am thinking about removing OS X completely and running Windows 10 as my primary OS. However, there are a few apps (Logic Pro, etc) that I would want to use OS X for. Question is whether I can completely remove OS X from the system drive (this should be fine) but be able to install it to an external USB 3.0 SSD for the times I'd like to use it? Does OS X necessitate being installed on the primary disk?

Please save the "why on earth" questions – having used OS X since Leopard, I've become increasingly frustrated by it lately. I find Windows 10 to be a slicker and more productive OS for my requirements.

 

[Shirasaki]

Umm, it is definitely possible to install OS X onto external disk. But you may need to do that before installing Windows 10 and remove Mac OS X completely.
If you want single Windows 10 on your MacBook, you may use Windows installation media to format the whole disk. BootCamp may interrupt you from doing so, but I don't know.

 

[MikhailT]

Hi all

I own a 2013 Retina MacBook Pro and am thinking about removing OS X completely and running Windows 10 as my primary OS. However, there are a few apps (Logic Pro, etc) that I would want to use OS X for. Question is whether I can completely remove OS X from the system drive (this should be fine) but be able to install it to an external USB 3.0 SSD for the times I'd like to use it? Does OS X necessitate being installed on the primary disk?

Please save the "why on earth" questions – having used OS X since Leopard, I've become increasingly frustrated by it. I find Windows 10 to be a slicker and more productive OS for my requirements.

I would recommend using Bootcamp and reduce OS X size to the smallest partition possible. You still need to use OS X to install firmware updates and so on and IIRC, Mac App Store won't let you update or install some apps to external drives, so you will have some problems with using OS X on the external drives.

To avoid issues, the official Bootcamp + dual partition is the way to go.

And yes, the system can be configured to boot to Windows always.

 

[benweston88]

I would recommend using Bootcamp and reduce OS X size to the smallest partition possible. You still need to use OS X to install firmware updates and so on and IIRC, Mac App Store won't let you update or install some apps to external drives, so you will have some problems with using OS X on the external drives.

To avoid issues, the official Bootcamp + dual partition is the way to go.

Ah yes, good point – I hadn't considered firmware upgrades. This makes the case for one of those Transcend 960GB SSD upgrades (currently got the 512GB flash). They ARE expensive though!

 

[MikhailT]

Ah yes, good point – I hadn't considered firmware upgrades. This makes the case for one of those Transcend 960GB SSD upgrades (currently got the 512GB flash). They ARE expensive though!

Yes they are and you could get cheaper external drives that is fast enough to serve your media content need if you know what you want.