Run an OS through an external hard drive?

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I recently bought a new iMac 21.5" and found that I will need more than 500 gb of storage because I installed Windows 7 so I can play some games. So here are my questions/dilemas

1. Can I take my iMac to an Apple store have them upgrade my HDD?
2. If not, would I be able to run Windows 7 and play video games through an external hd? I've once had to use a USB drive to run my old Macbook because the hdd died on me so I temporarily used the external to use it and within a couple of weeks, the external had slowed down and could barely run osx.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
 

chscag

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Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
You can't run Windows 7 or any other version of Windows from an external hard drive as that is a MS restriction to combat piracy. Besides, the Boot Camp assistant will not install it that way.

You're saying that a 500 GB hard drive is not enough space to play games? Buy an external hard drive and load up all your music, movies, and photos on it and just devote more room for your Windows 7 partition. Make sure you leave enough space for Lion and your OS X applications.
 

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