Future Bootcamp Support of External Drives?

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Future Bootcamp Support of External Drives?

With internal SSD drives still relatively small on both the Air and Pro, has anyone heard any rumors of adding external USB or Thunderbolt drive support in a future version of Bootcamp? I would think the faster interfaces that are now available would make this an attractive option.

7. If I have more than one hard drive, can I install Microsoft Windows on any drive?

You can use Boot Camp to install Windows on any internal hard drive, but not on an external hard drive.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 19, 2012 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 21, 2012 9:20 AM in response to Pozotron

This has been an ongoing question since Bootcamp was released. I've actually been searching the answer myself. I can understand why Bootcamp must be installed on an internal drive, mainly because USB 2.0 simply isn't fast enough to run efficiently from an external hdd, in my opinion. However, with the introduction of USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, I don't see why this isn't an option anymore.

Personally, I don't use Windows that much, mainly for gaming. In these instances, I would much rather connect my MBP to an external hdd and boot to that for windows rather than taking up precious ssd space for windows. My understanding is that with Thunderbolt, the speed is supposed to be akin to having a drive interally connected (just like my eSATA adapter for my early 2008 MBP; and in this case, Thunderbolt is even faster than that).

Hopefully, the question will either be answered by the community or Apple themselves soon.

Here is some literature I have found, none really answering the question entirely:

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1156578

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1163629

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1367876.html

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Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jun 21, 2012 9:19 AM in response to Pozotron

It is Windows not Apple, not Boot Camp, and you can have two SSDs, while 256GB SSD have dropped to under $200 (Crucial m4 sale Memory day was $180).

Booting Windows from external devices is not supported. You can run a VM instead of natively though.

And you can put all your data on externals and save space on internal drive - for both Mac and Windows.

you can always put OS X and boot external IF the interface and controller are supported of course, not totally different there, but doable.

A laptop will always be limited in what you can and cannot do or having two internal SSDs or other setups.

Even PCs are pretty much the same.

Does Apple have USB3 or SATA3 external ports that are bootable for OS X? then connect your SSD to those externally and use internal drive for Windows. OS X can get along fine for OS and apps on small 60GB and even smaller probably.

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