I-Like-Pizza

Q: Installing Windows 10 on SSD instead of Fusion Drive

Can I bootcamp Windows on SSD instead of Fusion Drive?


This relates to the link I posted above^^^^

 

I have a late 2014 27" Retina iMac with 1 TB Fusion drive(128 GB SSD). I'm considering loading up a native install of Windows 10 and giving it a shot to see how I like it(I've been having some issues running Windows through the VM and wanted to try a native install or to see how doable it is). I had a few questions...



Has anyone done it? If so how do you like it? Pros Cons?

I understand the fusion tech won't work with Windows but can you uncouple the drives so that Windows sees the 1 TB HD as a separate drive while in windows?

 

I have been looking at the below video for steps on how to do it but this is just for a single SSD, not fusion drive(also it's Windows 8.1, not 10)

 

In general the steps seems as follows.(I'm fine with wiping out my OSX installation and using this as a Windows only machine, I have nothing important on my computer at the moment as I just did a clean install of Sierra a couple days ago.)

 

  • Have a bootable OSX Sierra USB drive incase I want to scrap everything and reinstall

 

  • Put Windows 10 ISO on USB

 

  • Download bootcamp drivers to USB

 

  • Boot iMac into Windows 10 EFI USB Boot

boot-select-device.png

 

 

'Leave the EFI partition and Delete the OSX partition'. This part I am unsure of with the Fusion drive. The part where it asks Where do you want to install Windows(similar to image below) I'm referencing the 7:40 marker of the video . https://youtu.be/z6-FLbfHhwk?t=7m38s


Can I format the 1 TB from this screen as a proper Windows NTFS partition? And then install Windows on the SSD part?


windows-install-partition-delete.png



  • Install windows
  • Boot into windows and run the bootcamp drivers

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Oct 17, 2016 2:56 PM