Windows on a drive for gaming.

[Yasser94]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering, I'd like to play some games on my new MacBook Pro "15 2017 2.9Ghz; there for I'd like to bootcamp windows but on an external drive. Couple of questions:

1. Is there a noticeable performance difference between a USB-C drive or a thunderbolt drive ?
2. Would it be wise to use a 128gb UCB-C Thumb drive or should I invest in an SSD ?
3. Is there any up to date guide on how to install windows on an external drive ?
4. Would perhaps parallels be powerful enough to play some games ?

Thanks for any response already

 

[belvdr]

There's no way I'd use a thumb drive. They should be considered temporary and can fail at any time.

 

[velocityg4]

1. True USB 3.1 (USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 10gbps) is faster than the SATA interface (6gbps) used by most SSD. The drive you buy would be more important. As performance varies by make and model. I'd want a Samsung T5. It has USB 3.1 Gen 2 and TRIM support. Most other drives aren't as good as Samsung. The Samsung T3 is very close but USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5gbps).

Now if you can find a Thunderbolt 3 NVMe (PCIe or M.2). It will be faster. Although you won't notice much of a difference, if any, in load times. Certainly not enough to justify the cost.

2. A hard drive would be faster than a thumb drive. 128GB is nowhere near enough to hold games. Windows and one game can fill that up. I'd get 500GB as an absolute minimum.

3. It's not easy. https://hackernoon.com/how-to-run-bootcamp-windows-10-on-a-usb3-86551dc3def8

4. No, an OS on Parallels does not get the necessary low level hardware access needed.

 

[Gjwilly]

3. It's not easy. https://hackernoon.com/how-to-run-bootcamp-windows-10-on-a-usb3-86551dc3def8

I just finished installing with this method and it is pretty easy. A lot easier and quicker than the method I used to install Windows 8.
The guide does have a few mistakes and forgotten steps so use the corrected version provided by one of the commenters.
https://medium.com/@SteveAA/hi-guys...tbe-able-a-few-with-their-errors-dafec1e44d12

And the download link for the Bootcamp Support Software is no longer valid so I used Brigadier to obtain the correct version for my MacBook.
https://github.com/timsutton/brigadier
I tried using Bootcamp Assistant but it kept failing saying the software was unavailable.

If you're using a 2017 MacBook (or any MacBook?) you'll need a USB mouse to complete the Windows setup because you won't have a working trackpad nor keyboard until you install the Bootcamp drivers.
You won't need a keyboard because Windows 10 provides an on-screen keyboard.