Best way to take advandage of an external SSD (USB 3.1) on a imac 2017 model (1TB HDD)

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FGS21 Author

Level 1

8 points

Best way to take advandage of an external SSD (USB 3.1) on a imac 2017 model (1TB HDD)

Hi all!!

I have the following configuration on my 1TB internal HDD:

850 GB MacOS Mojave
150 GB Windows 10 (Bootcamp)

I have a new 500 GB external SSD (USB 3.1) compatible with mac.

I bought it for a purpose (option 4), but exploring the internet I found out that I have many options to use it including:

MacOS Mojave (copy)
Windows 2 go
Virtualization of windows (or other operating system) with VMware fusion, parallels etc (bad option for gaming)
Use it as an external storage on mac or bootcamp (gaming , videos, etc)

My question (if someone has come across this question) is what is the optimal usage of the external SSD for my case, putting as first priority the improvement of fps in gaming, as for storage all the options work. And I am very pleased with the performance of Mojave and Bootcamp in running all the applications except games (good performance but not high end).

Any thoughts on this will be welcome!!!

Thanx in advance!!

iMac 21.5" 4K, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 17, 2019 4:17 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,855 points

May 17, 2019 4:30 PM in response to FGS21

You cannot use it with Window except for storage. You can use it on the Mac as a startup volume or a storage volume. The former may be helpful if the current startup drive is a HDD. The SSD could then be used to increase the speed of the overall boot up process. If it is not large enough to contain all the files on a startup volume, it is certainly large enough for much of what is on the HDD. However, if this is not a major interest, then it could be used for improving the speed of gaming by using the SSD as storage space for games' data storage needs.

You may find it useful to try the two options to find out which is best for your usage.

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Answer 2

rcosta887

Level 4

3,604 points

May 17, 2019 5:01 PM in response to FGS21

Using your external SSD will definitely not help your FPS in any Windows gaming. Your current Boot Camp setup off of your internal 1TB is going to be the absolute best you can get with your current hardware.

The only way to get better FPS would be to get an external GPU box for your Mac, a suitable graphics card, and then to get your Bootcamped version of Windows using the external GPU.

Aside from the expense of an eGPU for your Mac it sounds like a little work is also required to get Windows-via-Bootcamp to recognize the external GPU, but lots of gamers on Macs do in fact do this.

https://www.imore.com/use-your-egpu-under-bootcamp-macbook-pro-and-mojave

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Answer 3

FGS21 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 18, 2019 2:28 PM in response to rcosta887

I definetly agree that the eGPU option is the only way to achieve high end gaming performance, but it is a rather complicated way for both of the reasons you have described. OK we all put some games in our computers for some fun, but I think eGPU option is way too much. Due to the fact that imac's screen is gorgeous, it would help if we could put some AAA games easier.

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Answer 4

FGS21 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 18, 2019 2:58 PM in response to Kappy

For another time I get the most responsible answers from this Apple's Community Forum (as oppossing of watching videos in internet).

I will try the Mac startup volume option first. Of course I will have to erase some files and downsize my hard drive to 400 GB.

It is an external SSD as opposed to Apple's native internale SSDs, but due to the fact that there are some other side bennefits (eg a ready to go backup) and I do expect to see optimezed performace in loading times, I believe that this is the optimal usage of an external SSD for my setup. Thank you all!!

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Best way to take advandage of an external SSD (USB 3.1) on a imac 2017 model (1TB HDD)

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