@ it would be the same thing if your internal hard drive died. Make sure it’s backed up and at least if the external drive died, you aren’t booting from it so you could change back to using the internal hard drive. One easy way is to have a secondary admin account that has nothing on it but is still using the internal drive so you can easily make a quick change to your main account. The other would be since you aren’t booting from the external drive, to try and login to your main account and see if it will let you switch without having to do it from the secondary account.
Seems logical but in all actuality, I could care two craps less about Apple Pay/intelligence 🤣 been externally booting lately to run older music software and the r/w speeds were faster than my old laptops internal speeds 😂 am I missing something here? I must be breaking something please elaborate if I am
one youtuber also mentioned to set up a secondary admin on the internal drive in case of catastrophic failure of the external drive. This gives you an opportunity to still access those internal only files to recover from
@@bnehus11 Mac Sound Solutions has a couple of recent vids on how to set up external storage for your Home folder, etc. I think it was him who was referenced.
If you do a new setup like this, can you restore your old machine data from a time machine backup and will it then put your old home folder on the SSD?
Thanks Geoff, this is useful. I scrolled down and somebody already asked what follows. As I understand it. Set up the Mac Mini as normal (account etc). Then, once the external drive is set up as the main drive, install all apps on this drive. I can work out iCloud later. Although I am not a great fan of iCloud. Have great day all 🙂
I bought the Mac mini pro….an enclosure for 4 TB card….all to be set up before I check in…..BUT HOW do I then migrate all my iMac materials to the new Mac mini and enclosure ?
I think this video is more to do with moving the home folder location to an external drive rather tan using the external drive as the main (read that is startup) disk. i think this is what is confusing commenters.
Yes, this is how I understand this video, too: Just move the Home folder to the cheaper but faster external Storage (most probably a faster SSD than the internal by Apple with a chosen external enclosure which is bus-powered!) and leave the macOS, the Apple software apps and caches etc. on the internal SSD permanently soldered to the mainboard by Apple. Do not boot from external! Thanks for your comment!
@@paulhorn24 Sorry, I just wanted to clarify, are you saying that moving the home folder to the external SSD will make it the default "storage" when installing software or apps (including app folders)
@@88polyphia no, that’s not how I understand this strategy. Moving the Home folder only deals with the folders „documents“, „downloads“, „photos“, „videos“. As far as I understand are folders like „applications“ not user-specific but are located inside the general library folder. What a user thinks he sees is often just a symlink inside the macOS. For example that what appears to be an application in the applications folder is indeed a folder itself containing all the files needed to run that said application. But this is hidden to the user and he sees only the application icon. This is just an example to my argument, that there is a lot more going on what the typical user never sees and notices.
@@paulhorn24 thanks! But is it possible that whenever you install software or app, default storage that will be consumed will be under the storage of an external SSD?
There is such a thing as startup disk feature which you can find in the General Setting and what it means is you can have OSs installed in different external SSDs and with this startup disk feature you can target the OS installed in a SSD as your boot up computer. Example in my case I use an external SSD for Sequoia and the beta installed in the SSD in my Mac mini.
Quick question: I just bought my M4 and i agree with you it sounds like a great bargain. Could I use my old mac mini 2014 as an external drive (I have 2T there). Alternatively what do you think of the mini dock stations with SSD drive enclose? would an external SSd drive be faster ? thank you for your videos!
There is a way you can access your old Mac mini over the network, you just have to enable it in your system settings and its pretty simple, I would just do that unless you are actively trying to use that hard drive to edit video etc
Good one. Booting from external drove breaks AI. Tip I saw in another vieo: create a second user with admin rights without changing the documents location. So you can boot in cases anything goes wrong with your external drive.
Just purchased my mac mini, and an external SSD and enclosure. I assume the drive needs to be formatted prior to plugging it in as my new main folder drive. The question, as this is my first mac, would formatting this from my daughters MacBook be OK ?
Goeff, is that OWC Thunderbolt 4 an enclosure or an SSD inside? And how many TB’s? I see one can buy just the enclosure. Need clarification. Thanks, Gianni❤
Mac programs are small. I have a ton installed and I'm only using 80 gigs. Just save all files to the external and keep your programs on the internal. This ends up being a hassle in the long run.
Really depends on the program, the ones we use as video editors with all the plugins and etc are not in the end. Depends on the person, there isn’t one blanket answer
Thanks Geoff! I want to do this exact thing when I get the new MAC Mini 4! I want to replace a 2012 MAC Mini that I use strictly for a Music server... I really appreciate you knowledge!
Hi sir, why didn't you choose Nvme SSD and an enclosure for this setup, the enclosures are very cool these days with lot of features and Nvme ssd is very cheaper than external ssd
Yikes I did this and now I can't launch the mac mini. I'm now getting an error. It is saying "You are unable to log into the user account at this time. What went wrong??
RE eNTER all settings? does that include web based things like passwords for chrome, google , youtube, messenger, etc? I wish I'd seen this when I first purchased, ha!
How do the apps end up on the external drive? Aren't you just pointing the Home folder to the external drive in which case Documents, Downloads, Pics, Music folders etc are stored on the external but NOT the apps????
@@allanpennington apps are stored on external as well by default if you choose home drive method. Anything you leave installed on your internal drive will stay installed once you make this change and will be inaccessible unless you revert back so delete any apps before you do this
@@ReachFilms Thanks that's interesting. Must be a new feature of the op system as when I did this on my old Mac running High Sierra the apps stayed put and were accessible even though the Doc, Downloads folders etc went to the other drive location.
Does Safari still run properly for you? I tried setting up my new m4 Pro Mac Mini last night using this technique and as soon as I switched to my home directory to the Thunderbolt SSD Safari would crash out immediately any time I tried to run it. All the other apps worked fine. Except Safari. I went ahead and erased and restored the Mac and tried it again but Safari still will not run using this arrangement
That’s pretty weird, I feel like there must be some setting on your end (not your fault) that isn’t configured right but mine works so not sure what that would be
@@ReachFilms Thanks for the reply. I spent more than 5 hours trying to figure out what is happening with mine. I just wanted to confirm that Safari is working for your setup before I spend more time trying to work out the issues with mine.
@@pierpaolocadeddu3033 you can proceed I just would use it as an external and not a main drive like I speak of in this video. I would only do the whole home drive method with desktops
The only issue I had doing this was for some reason the Documents folder stayed on the internal drive & won’t let me move it as it says in use my MacOS.
Slightly confused. You speak about applications, which as far as I know, do not live in the home folder. So when you discuss having to uninstall and reinstall Davinci Resolve after making that configuration change, the location of the DR install is still the same... am I missing something here? Or is the issue/need to reinstall related to the home folder's Library directory that breaks...?
I just have my Pictures, Movies and downloads on my external which frees up enough space and it is easier to set up if you do not do what you suggested first when setting up a new Mac. I thought at first I would just clone my internal drive to external and boot from that but then AI would not work on my Mac Mini M4..
This method is really meant for people that have so many apps on the computer they need to have them live on the external. Sounds like that is not your case here
Another RUclipsr who was trying to do this as well, ran into the problem that Apple intelligent doesn't work anymore and other applications too. He got an notification about it. So he said you have to copy the home folder onto the external drive and keep the OS on the main drive to prevent it from happening. Wondered if you’ve ran into this issue aswell.
I wasn’t able to move the OS to the external drive and honestly that’s a good thing. At this point I’ll have over 200gb free at all times, so I’m happy to let it run on the internal drive
@@carloscruzmusiq835 it’s all good!! I think if someone somehow tries to force the computer to install the OS. They should be warned, seems Apple doesn’t make it easy to do that and now I understand why :)
(1) The Applications folder is outside the home folder along with System folders, except for any applications which are local to one user rather than available to any user. My single-user Mac has as of today exactly 200 items in the Applications folder and that folder consumes only 56 GB. I would avoid hassles and leave the Applications folder on the internal drive. (2) Spotlight does not index external drives. (3) If you encrypt the external drive that contains the home folder you'll have to supply the password to permit it to be mounted each time you reboot. (4) I suspect, but am not sure, that iCloud will not automatically sync to an external user folder. (5) If, like me, you use Carbon Copy Cloner to do routine backups, you'll have to use two tasks, one each for the stuff on the internal drive and one for the external user folder.
Thank you for your expert advice! I’m just an amateur upgrading to a Mac mini m4 from a 2013imac. I do photo editing using photoshop but nothing extreme. Trying to upgrade on the cheap and want to use an external SSD . Is a samsungT7 enough without overheating issues?
This is my first Mac. I followed your instructions and also bought the OWC to use a Samsung 980 Pro with. After restarting my mini, I can no longer log in to my apple account. It keeps telling me [You are unable to log in to the user account "xxxxxx" at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred.]
I've just purchased a Mac mini and external SSD based on this advice and others. It seems that if you use the external SSD as your Documents folder you can no longer back this up to iCloud. An important thing to know. Now I have no offsite backup
I’m not sure what you mean by your question but to answer it simply, because it doesn’t. You can only set iCloud to back up from the Documents and D 0:02 esktop folder of an internal HDD. If you know a way to solve this then please let me know.
Geoff..., loved your video, and thank you SOOO much. I have an old MAC Mini (~10 years old) and am going to replace that with a base M4 and use an OWC Thunderbolt external drive just as you suggest. I've watched your video about how to set this up, but really don't want to mess up the process. I know this may be a REALLY stupid question, but what is there to do between unboxing the new computer and installing the external hard drive as you show in your video? Is there something to do, besides turn it on, to set up the Mac Mini as normal before setting up the external drive as the main drive like you explain?
@ yes contact Apple through your phone they’ll walk you through uninstalling the os and re installing it and that brings it back to out of the box settings.
I didn’t do this when first starting my new Mac mini because I was nervous of getting it wrong and because I was using a Time Machine backup to load up the new computer. I don’t know if it’s just me but the OS and system data files take up about 100GB. My apps for photo editing take about 100GB so even though I keep all my photo files on external drives and all my docs etc in the Cloud, I’ve already used about half of my 512GB storage. I’m glad I didn’t go for the 256GB option.
@@ianforber my is usually takes around 48gb max. Every few years I have to reset my computers because there’s a bunch of dead files in the system files. You may be due for a deep cleaning
I’ve been running an 8TB external M2 NVME drive to store files and I had one drive fail/die. It also overheats and come unplugged easily, since the Thunderbolt cables have no latch. So make sure you make backups and are prepared to reinstall everything. It’s much safer/better to just get 1-2TB internal SSD and use that for apps and have a large external drive for files. Also getting the 1-2TB internal drive doubles the disk performance over the 256-512GB variants. You get 6GB/sec read and write with 1-2TB vs. 3GB/sec for 256-512.
That's not correct. I have a brand new M4 iMac with 1TB internal SSD and Blackmagic still reports 3000/3000. I believe you need a pro or max to get the 6000/6000.
I’ve been doing this with my Mac computers using external thunderbolt drives for several years now. The problem now is however that Apple Intelligence will not work when a Mac is started from an external volume, nor will Apple Pay, I’m told. So, I now have to look at which files and folders can be successfully moved to an external drive whilst booting off the internal drive, and can I reliably get away with a 256 GB internal drive for that purpose. One piece of good news is that the latest version of macOS now allows apps to be installed directly onto external drives, but this applies only to those apps downloaded from the App Store. All in all, it’s a lot more messy I think and I will lose my ability to carry only the thunderbolt drive around with me and connect it to various host Macs.
@ the reason I call it the main drive is it holds all data except for the operating system data which stays on the internal SSD. If you watch the video I explain
@ understood, I will watch it again. Do you think it’s still a good idea to go for a 512GB internal SSD when the intention is to use an external SSD in the way you suggest? Many thanks.
@ if you go for more than 256gb drive you might as well stay using the internal drive. The read and write on the 512 is apparently much faster than the base model 256gb which is why I’m recommending this method to m4 base model users
I've already installed apps on my main internal drive... I shouldve watched your video first, in order to create the extended ssd that will be the main drive... :(
I bought the OWC you recommended . I have theM4Pro. I already loading every thing on the Mac Mini in fact I loaded it from my old iMac. I then connected my external Time Machine backups to the new Mac mini? Does having the Time Machine backs ups of any value in getting the SSD set up? Thx
OK not being a Mac Guy how do I know the Home Folder is Really on the External drive and Down loads will go to the External and not the Internal 256GB SSD?
Hi Geoff, I have an iMac which is running from an external drive (I also have another external with the Time Machine back up), just bought the new Mac Mini M4 and an external SSD with enclosure (Which I want to be my main drive). What are the steps that you would recommend in this case? Thank you in advance! Great video btw 👍🏻
Thanks for the video. Very helpful. Once I have the mini set up with the external SSD, how do I bring overall my stuff from my MacBook Pro. I suspect for my user folder I can just copy it. But what about the stuff, like applications, that won't go on the SSD. Do I have to reinstall everything? thx
ok this M4 is my first Mac, and I have a new 4tb external ssd drive, can I use the 256 gb of the Mac just for OS and software and use the external 4tb for documents? The external always connected to the mac?
I just did this and I got an error message when restarting that says “you are unable to log in to the user account (name) at this time. “ what do I do I’m stuck here HELP!
@@Xoalcs unfortunately it’s why in this video I only recommend using the owc drive. The Samsung drives are way too slow to be doing this, and the only people reporting issues are ones using the T7. I unfortunately don’t have a fix other than anyone reading this heed my warning as I say in the video. DO NOT use a T7 to do this, use Thunderbolt 4 drives minimum if you decide not to use the owc drive. But I really only recommend the owc drive because it won’t overheat
what about the programs that are already on the m4.. gargae band, books, imovie etc. iphotos -- how d u move them over and save to external drive as well..
@ReachFilms, thank you for this quick and to the point tip. Could you please explain what the process is like if I already have a Mac and want to use this method?
@@DearWokeChristian if you want to do this and already have a Mac you can either do it and leave everything on your drive, or start uninstalling apps and data so free up space before you do the change of home location
Can you use the same hard drive you used for a Mac m2 (booting from) for this method? Without erasing the drive and reformatting? Tried it multiple times but all I get is a loading screen after restarting 🥲
Would it work if I did this method on my m2 then switched to my m4? Will it be compatible with both? Sorry for the questions, I’ve just bought the m4 but can’t load music projects with all the plugins intact 🥲 thank you for getting back to me
Great video! How about if I am moving from an iMac 2017 to a new Mac mini 1TB. And I have a new 2TB external SDD drive for my new Mac mini, but my computer information it’s in my old external hard drive that I connect using Time Machine. What my best way to do this, transferring what I have in my actual iMac 2017 to my Mac mini.
I have the same 2017 imac, and have the same issue. I have Superduper and Time Machine Backups ready. And I have thought about just copying data only to a second external drive, and transfer that to the external of the mac mini. But I see issues. I'm still waiting till someone like you who tries a few things to report back on how your transfer went!
Can someone help, I want to migrate from iMac to my new M4 mini but it’s not working as it says not enough space on my Mac mini. I want to migrate to ssd for storage but it only seems to want to migrate to mini storage. I’ve changed the home folder but still not working..help!
@@ReachFilms thanks for your input!...like you recommended in another video, i'll setting up a secondary user account that's not linked to the external ssd....so i can use it mobile with small storage and at home as a desktop
Does this method allow me to install daw to SSD, LIKE PRO TOOLS, FL STUDIO? Does it allow me to install VSTI like PianoVerse, Addictive Drums 2, keyscape on the External drive like it would on the main drive? Mixing Plugins such as Waves Audio? I am a windows person thinking of coming to Mac but the memory upgrade is not friendly, so i really want to know if the external drive can become the C drive, this is what PC call main drive?
I haven’t tested the 512gb but from what I understand it is faster than the base model, it may be the same speed of the owc or slightly faster but in the ball park
Fantastic informative video. Quick question, do you need to use specialized Thunder Bolt 4 cables when making the physical connection from the Mac M4 to an external HD, or will a regular USB-C cable do the job? Thanks'
If I already completed the initial setup & my Os is around 18G, Photos & Podcast about 6G. If I want to make the External SSD the home folder, would I have to delete or manually move Photos & Podcasts over to the External?
@@isabellavision That "Sucks Big Time!". See no technology requirement for this other than Apple, wanting to sell more SSD storage, and make more money. "Show me the money!!!!".
The Synology CMS is still much superior to UniFi's limited multi site capabilities. It also supports encryption, granular user permissions, and more sophisticated ONVIF support. The downside is licensing.
Question let’s say I get a new Mac mini M4, and I load it up and I sign out to my iCloud ..won’t my iCloud files start to propagate on the new drive automatically or is there something I should do before my iCloud file start to propagate on the new device?
@@ReachFilms I don’t believe iCloud syncs to your computer. You can choose whatever folder you want to download to your computer, in case you need to work on something and have no internet connection. IN Sequoia there is a right click option to download now or keep downloaded…. This last option would sync back and forth…from cloud to computer…
I have an M2 mac mini which is great and runs well,I have no need to upgrade as I don't do much on my mac .I have 2 windows server machines for my storage with 16tb between them.however why buy a mac mini and then worry over the base model storage..waste of money and time ..just buy a macmini M4 pro with 32gb and 1tb storage and forget your worries that's what apple expect its users to do if your purpose is more than internet browsing or simple document processing...not creative stuff or heavy duty...
@@georgetechtips8804 I'm pretty sure the entire purpose of this is just about saving money and not paying the "Apple Tax" of $400-$800 for a measly 1-2 TB of Storage. This gets you great value out of a $600 computer. Otherwise, if you upgrade your Mac Mini to 32 GB Memory (RAM) and 2 TB of storage, it's now a $2000 computer and not such a great value anymore.
Hmm.., what could potentially go wrong with an external SSD setup for your $home, that is being actively accessed 24x7 to run your applications or retrieve your data? 1. Accidental pullout of the external SSD 2. Crashing of the external SSD including H/W faults 3. Power failure to the external SSD - power outages and surges 4. Overheating - High temperatures can cause the SSD's chips and controllers to fail 5. Corrupted data and bad blocks 6. Buggy applications freezing up and crashing, causing disk corruptions If I was seeking adventure, i'd probably use Velcro to attach ext. SSD to mac mini and also connect it's power supply through surge protector. Further for long term archival (via time machine backups) i'd probably use a different type of secondary storage.
This only applies to the user's home directory. Applications that rely on the Library/Application Support folder (such as Steinberg, Logic, and GarageBand) will still use your internal drive. My Library takes up 835GB, and my Users folder is 513GB. To store this externally, I had to install the OS on an external drive. While this solution "works," it disables OS update functionality and breaks certain "Apple-protected" services.
Thanks for this great video, I have installed my apps on Mac Mini internal storage. I would uninstall them, what do i need to do next to ensure that they download to the external storage. You mentioned that you had to go through a process of changing the disk drive links?
My computer I built in 2006 had a 250gb hdd. Now we are 18 years later and apple’s desktop equivalent has how much storage as standard - the same! 18 years and no progress!!! Yes, it’s much faster but to have the same storage as standard as my tower did almost 20 years ago is truly mad.
Keep the OS on main drive and put other stuff like projects on the external. What if I want to take the computer on the go, now I need to lug an external SSD just to boot it.
if we set home directory to ext ssd, it will just continue our future install app to ext ssd right? the app in internal ssd will work as they should... please elaborate..
If you choose the external you will no longer see any of the apps on the internal even if they are still installed on there. If you switch back to the internal drive though and everything is still installed they will all show up again
I just purchased the M4 pro mac mini, then came across the videos about moving the home folder over to SSD. I thank you for your assessment on which external drive to use but i have a few questions. Is it the fact that the "enclosure" is Thunderbolt 4 that gives the drive its speed or is it the NVMe chip that has to be that fast? What would be recommended chips that have a 2 or more TB storage? Do you get the products from amazon or OWC website? Now the kicker, under the guide rom apple support, I already did a data transfer from my mbp to the m4-pro internal hard drive. This procedure transferred the whole identity of the laptop into the M4- now the hard drive has the name of my laptop and all its glory. Obviously one would like to be able to determine which computer i am using by looking at the name, (and i know that if the laptop is not connected to my monitor, its the desktop im seeing, but I don't want them to have the same name) so what do you do to avoid this when transferring data? Would you also recommend to just reformat and reinstall the OS on the M4-Pro back to default (how?) , then set up the new larger external ssd drive, then transfer data? So much info its confusing. TIA for instructions
Thank you for the video; it's very helpful. When using the Samsung External SSD as my main drive, is it necessary to connect it to the usb c thunderbolt port on the back of the Mac Mini or can I connect it to a dongle since my other ports on the back of the mini are already used to connect other gear, e.g., mic, camera, etc.?
@ I would really only recommend the owc drive i show in this video as it has speeds. faster than the internal drive and close to more expensive internal drives
Can wei still using "Apple intelligence" if we switch our main drive to external SSD? Back to M2 age, I was installed the OS in the external drive. Cook said you can't use Apple AI if you do that.
Don’t install the os on an external drive. That’s booting from a drive which is different from this. the method I describe is just changing the home location
I am surprised that you cannot choose what drive you will install a new app to whenever you do an install. I have never owned a Mac but when I install a Steam game on my PC, I am offered a choice of drives every time I do an install. I have a terabyte of Steam games on my 2 Tb PC SSD and 1.5 terabytes of Steam games on my 2 Tb PC hard disk.
Just want to note, this method is not about using an external hard drive to boot from. I don’t personally do that nor do I recommend it either
but geoff , just thinking forward , what do you suggest i do if one day the drive dies ?? how will it effect us ?? thanks again .
newbee john
@ it would be the same thing if your internal hard drive died. Make sure it’s backed up and at least if the external drive died, you aren’t booting from it so you could change back to using the internal hard drive. One easy way is to have a secondary admin account that has nothing on it but is still using the internal drive so you can easily make a quick change to your main account. The other would be since you aren’t booting from the external drive, to try and login to your main account and see if it will let you switch without having to do it from the secondary account.
Thank you for this video.
Why do you specifically not recommend booting from the external drive?
@@timothylowe8327 if you boot from external SSD, Apple Intelligent won't work. That's what I encountered.
Seems logical but in all actuality, I could care two craps less about Apple Pay/intelligence 🤣 been externally booting lately to run older music software and the r/w speeds were faster than my old laptops internal speeds 😂 am I missing something here? I must be breaking something please elaborate if I am
one youtuber also mentioned to set up a secondary admin on the internal drive in case of catastrophic failure of the external drive. This gives you an opportunity to still access those internal only files to recover from
That is a great note! Thank you!!
Do remember which RUclipsr?
@@bnehus11@macsoundsolutions is one that mentioned it. ruclips.net/video/WtIbGq6Od6o/видео.htmlsi=j9gG0PZwyyD5EHzM
@@bnehus11Mac Sound Solutions Inc.
@@bnehus11 Mac Sound Solutions has a couple of recent vids on how to set up external storage for your Home folder, etc. I think it was him who was referenced.
Thanks!
Glad I could help! Thank you for the super chat!
Geoff, when you completed this process, does your iCloud Drive sync to the external drive? Or, does it still sync to the internal drive?
i came from the other video were you recommended this drive and i would like to say sir THANK YOU you saved 300+ usd
If you do a new setup like this, can you restore your old machine data from a time machine backup and will it then put your old home folder on the SSD?
Thanks Geoff, this is useful.
I scrolled down and somebody already asked what follows.
As I understand it. Set up the Mac Mini as normal (account etc). Then, once the external drive is set up as the main drive, install all apps on this drive.
I can work out iCloud later. Although I am not a great fan of iCloud.
Have great day all 🙂
I bought the Mac mini pro….an enclosure for 4 TB card….all to be set up before I check in…..BUT HOW do I then migrate all my iMac materials to the new Mac mini and enclosure ?
I think this video is more to do with moving the home folder location to an external drive rather tan using the external drive as the main (read that is startup) disk. i think this is what is confusing commenters.
Exactly what I was thinking. But it's nice to use the internal disk for recovery account as someone said, and the main user in external drive.
Yes, this is how I understand this video, too: Just move the Home folder to the cheaper but faster external Storage (most probably a faster SSD than the internal by Apple with a chosen external enclosure which is bus-powered!) and leave the macOS, the Apple software apps and caches etc. on the internal SSD permanently soldered to the mainboard by Apple. Do not boot from external!
Thanks for your comment!
@@paulhorn24 Sorry, I just wanted to clarify, are you saying that moving the home folder to the external SSD will make it the default "storage" when installing software or apps (including app folders)
@@88polyphia no, that’s not how I understand this strategy. Moving the Home folder only deals with the folders „documents“, „downloads“, „photos“, „videos“.
As far as I understand are folders like „applications“ not user-specific but are located inside the general library folder.
What a user thinks he sees is often just a symlink inside the macOS. For example that what appears to be an application in the applications folder is indeed a folder itself containing all the files needed to run that said application. But this is hidden to the user and he sees only the application icon. This is just an example to my argument, that there is a lot more going on what the typical user never sees and notices.
@@paulhorn24 thanks! But is it possible that whenever you install software or app, default storage that will be consumed will be under the storage of an external SSD?
There is such a thing as startup disk feature which you can find in the General Setting and what it means is you can have OSs installed in different external SSDs and with this startup disk feature you can target the OS installed in a SSD as your boot up computer. Example in my case I use an external SSD for Sequoia and the beta installed in the SSD in my Mac mini.
Quick question: I just bought my M4 and i agree with you it sounds like a great bargain. Could I use my old mac mini 2014 as an external drive (I have 2T there). Alternatively what do you think of the mini dock stations with SSD drive enclose? would an external SSd drive be faster ? thank you for your videos!
There is a way you can access your old Mac mini over the network, you just have to enable it in your system settings and its pretty simple, I would just do that unless you are actively trying to use that hard drive to edit video etc
Good one. Booting from external drove breaks AI. Tip I saw in another vieo: create a second user with admin rights without changing the documents location. So you can boot in cases anything goes wrong with your external drive.
Just purchased my mac mini, and an external SSD and enclosure. I assume the drive needs to be formatted prior to plugging it in as my new main folder drive. The question, as this is my first mac, would formatting this from my daughters MacBook be OK ?
Can’t the old home directory be copied over to the new drive so that the moment you select the new main drive it has everything ready to go?
Goeff, is that OWC Thunderbolt 4 an enclosure or an SSD inside? And how many TB’s? I see one can buy just the enclosure. Need clarification.
Thanks,
Gianni❤
@@gianni1646 they are technically all enclosures, you can. Just buy it empty or prefilled with owc memory
@ Thanks. I’m doing music and I dabble with video. What SSD would you recommend?
@ no problem! The one I use is in the description of the video I forget the exact model but it gets great read and write for the price
You deserve a lot more subscribers!!
Mac programs are small. I have a ton installed and I'm only using 80 gigs. Just save all files to the external and keep your programs on the internal. This ends up being a hassle in the long run.
Really depends on the program, the ones we use as video editors with all the plugins and etc are not in the end. Depends on the person, there isn’t one blanket answer
Thanks Geoff! I want to do this exact thing when I get the new MAC Mini 4! I want to replace a 2012 MAC Mini that I use strictly for a Music server... I really appreciate you knowledge!
Hi sir, why didn't you choose Nvme SSD and an enclosure for this setup, the enclosures are very cool these days with lot of features and Nvme ssd is very cheaper than external ssd
…… that is exactly what I did here. I’m confused if you watched the video
Yikes I did this and now I can't launch the mac mini. I'm now getting an error. It is saying "You are unable to log into the user account at this time. What went wrong??
RE eNTER all settings? does that include web based things like passwords for chrome, google , youtube, messenger, etc? I wish I'd seen this when I first purchased, ha!
How do the apps end up on the external drive? Aren't you just pointing the Home folder to the external drive in which case Documents, Downloads, Pics, Music folders etc are stored on the external but NOT the apps????
@@allanpennington apps are stored on external as well by default if you choose home drive method. Anything you leave installed on your internal drive will stay installed once you make this change and will be inaccessible unless you revert back so delete any apps before you do this
@@ReachFilms Thanks that's interesting. Must be a new feature of the op system as when I did this on my old Mac running High Sierra the apps stayed put and were accessible even though the Doc, Downloads folders etc went to the other drive location.
New MAC user would really like to see setting up a new mac M4 with external only without referring to an existing systems or Laptopm
When formatting my external SSD, what Format and Scheme should I use? APFS and GUID Partition Map?
YES APFS with GUID
Does Safari still run properly for you? I tried setting up my new m4 Pro Mac Mini last night using this technique and as soon as I switched to my home directory to the Thunderbolt SSD Safari would crash out immediately any time I tried to run it. All the other apps worked fine. Except Safari. I went ahead and erased and restored the Mac and tried it again but Safari still will not run using this arrangement
That’s pretty weird, I feel like there must be some setting on your end (not your fault) that isn’t configured right but mine works so not sure what that would be
@@ReachFilms Thanks for the reply. I spent more than 5 hours trying to figure out what is happening with mine. I just wanted to confirm that Safari is working for your setup before I spend more time trying to work out the issues with mine.
I like the idea of using a 1TB OWC as an external drive. I currently have a Mac Air with only 256GB. Are there any drawbacks, or can I proceed?
@@pierpaolocadeddu3033 you can proceed I just would use it as an external and not a main drive like I speak of in this video. I would only do the whole home drive method with desktops
It’s a posibility just to install programs I want on the ssd manually or I have to do all the process?
You have to follow all the steps in the video. Once you do it its one or the other
The only issue I had doing this was for some reason the Documents folder stayed on the internal drive & won’t let me move it as it says in use my MacOS.
Slightly confused. You speak about applications, which as far as I know, do not live in the home folder. So when you discuss having to uninstall and reinstall Davinci Resolve after making that configuration change, the location of the DR install is still the same... am I missing something here? Or is the issue/need to reinstall related to the home folder's Library directory that breaks...?
@@RodneyGracia correct it’s about the directory that breaks when you change the location
What about installation of audio vsts?
I just have my Pictures, Movies and downloads on my external which frees up enough space and it is easier to set up if you do not do what you suggested first when setting up a new Mac. I thought at first I would just clone my internal drive to external and boot from that but then AI would not work on my Mac Mini M4..
This method is really meant for people that have so many apps on the computer they need to have them live on the external. Sounds like that is not your case here
@@ReachFilms Correct but now you can have the larger apps (>1GB) installed from the App store to your external if needed which will also help
Its possible to run windows (mac mini 2018)?
yes it is! Depending on the spec of the computer though it may not run that well
so what happens when there's an OS update? Would that work "as normal" ie it just updates on the SSD
With this method the OS is still installed on the internal drive
So can I assume the transfer speeds of the external drive are much higher than the internal drive? Do you have the specs for both?
The write speed is much higher than the 256gb the read speed is only slightly higher. Once you jump up to 512gb though the speeds are not higher
Another RUclipsr who was trying to do this as well, ran into the problem that Apple intelligent doesn't work anymore and other applications too. He got an notification about it. So he said you have to copy the home folder onto the external drive and keep the OS on the main drive to prevent it from happening. Wondered if you’ve ran into this issue aswell.
I wasn’t able to move the OS to the external drive and honestly that’s a good thing. At this point I’ll have over 200gb free at all times, so I’m happy to let it run on the internal drive
@@ReachFilms Than i haven’t said anything haha 🤭🙈.
@@carloscruzmusiq835 it’s all good!! I think if someone somehow tries to force the computer to install the OS. They should be warned, seems Apple doesn’t make it easy to do that and now I understand why :)
(1) The Applications folder is outside the home folder along with System folders, except for any applications which are local to one user rather than available to any user. My single-user Mac has as of today exactly 200 items in the Applications folder and that folder consumes only 56 GB. I would avoid hassles and leave the Applications folder on the internal drive. (2) Spotlight does not index external drives. (3) If you encrypt the external drive that contains the home folder you'll have to supply the password to permit it to be mounted each time you reboot. (4) I suspect, but am not sure, that iCloud will not automatically sync to an external user folder. (5) If, like me, you use Carbon Copy Cloner to do routine backups, you'll have to use two tasks, one each for the stuff on the internal drive and one for the external user folder.
I think I was wrong about (3) Spotlight.
Does Time Machine work with this method enabled?
Same question here...
Thank you for your expert advice! I’m just an amateur upgrading to a Mac mini m4 from a 2013imac. I do photo editing using photoshop but nothing extreme. Trying to upgrade on the cheap and want to use an external SSD . Is a samsungT7 enough without overheating issues?
This is my first Mac. I followed your instructions and also bought the OWC to use a Samsung 980 Pro with. After restarting my mini, I can no longer log in to my apple account. It keeps telling me
[You are unable to log in to the user account "xxxxxx" at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred.]
I've just purchased a Mac mini and external SSD based on this advice and others. It seems that if you use the external SSD as your Documents folder you can no longer back this up to iCloud. An important thing to know. Now I have no offsite backup
wtf why
I’m not sure what you mean by your question but to answer it simply, because it doesn’t. You can only set iCloud to back up from the Documents and D 0:02 esktop folder of an internal HDD. If you know a way to solve this then please let me know.
Geoff..., loved your video, and thank you SOOO much. I have an old MAC Mini (~10 years old) and am going to replace that with a base M4 and use an OWC Thunderbolt external drive just as you suggest. I've watched your video about how to set this up, but really don't want to mess up the process. I know this may be a REALLY stupid question, but what is there to do between unboxing the new computer and installing the external hard drive as you show in your video? Is there something to do, besides turn it on, to set up the Mac Mini as normal before setting up the external drive as the main drive like you explain?
I just tried this and when I restart im told I am unable to log in because a failure occurred. How can I revert ?
Did you figure this out ???
Not at all. I can’t log in. I tried right out of the box and to a Samsung T9 external. Do you have the same problem?
@ yes contact Apple through your phone they’ll walk you through uninstalling the os and re installing it and that brings it back to out of the box settings.
I didn’t do this when first starting my new Mac mini because I was nervous of getting it wrong and because I was using a Time Machine backup to load up the new computer. I don’t know if it’s just me but the OS and system data files take up about 100GB. My apps for photo editing take about 100GB so even though I keep all my photo files on external drives and all my docs etc in the Cloud, I’ve already used about half of my 512GB storage. I’m glad I didn’t go for the 256GB option.
@@ianforber my is usually takes around 48gb max. Every few years I have to reset my computers because there’s a bunch of dead files in the system files. You may be due for a deep cleaning
“I get unable to verify startup disk error” on reboot. Anyone have fix for this?
I’ve been running an 8TB external M2 NVME drive to store files and I had one drive fail/die. It also overheats and come unplugged easily, since the Thunderbolt cables have no latch. So make sure you make backups and are prepared to reinstall everything. It’s much safer/better to just get 1-2TB internal SSD and use that for apps and have a large external drive for files. Also getting the 1-2TB internal drive doubles the disk performance over the 256-512GB variants. You get 6GB/sec read and write with 1-2TB vs. 3GB/sec for 256-512.
That's not correct. I have a brand new M4 iMac with 1TB internal SSD and Blackmagic still reports 3000/3000. I believe you need a pro or max to get the 6000/6000.
yes I have the pro.
I’ve been doing this with my Mac computers using external thunderbolt drives for several years now. The problem now is however that Apple Intelligence will not work when a Mac is started from an external volume, nor will Apple Pay, I’m told. So, I now have to look at which files and folders can be successfully moved to an external drive whilst booting off the internal drive, and can I reliably get away with a 256 GB internal drive for that purpose. One piece of good news is that the latest version of macOS now allows apps to be installed directly onto external drives, but this applies only to those apps downloaded from the App Store. All in all, it’s a lot more messy I think and I will lose my ability to carry only the thunderbolt drive around with me and connect it to various host Macs.
@@xray2785 in this video, I don’t discuss booting from an external drive. Booting from the external drive comes with the issues you bring up
@ I see, I misunderstood when you described it as making the external drive as your main drive, I took that to me boot drive
@ the reason I call it the main drive is it holds all data except for the operating system data which stays on the internal SSD. If you watch the video I explain
@ understood, I will watch it again. Do you think it’s still a good idea to go for a 512GB internal SSD when the intention is to use an external SSD in the way you suggest? Many thanks.
@ if you go for more than 256gb drive you might as well stay using the internal drive. The read and write on the 512 is apparently much faster than the base model 256gb which is why I’m recommending this method to m4 base model users
I just received my m4 mini and
I will set the “home” on the external drive.
As far as next steps do I just follow the prompts?
@@renepouliot6616 yep!
Good tip!
I'm glad you agree! it's a great way to get the most out of your Mac mini.
When I rebooted I get an error message that it can’t log into user account
I had the same problem. Have you been able to resolve it yet?
curious about how migration works with this setup from your old osX machine to the new one set up this way.
I've already installed apps on my main internal drive... I shouldve watched your video first, in order to create the extended ssd that will be the main drive... :(
Does Launchpad still function with the external ssd set up?
I bought the OWC you recommended . I have theM4Pro. I already loading every thing on the Mac Mini in fact I loaded it from my old iMac. I then connected my external Time Machine backups to the new Mac mini? Does having the Time Machine backs ups of any value in getting the SSD set up? Thx
@@DrAlanWeinstein I would always run a Time Machine backup just in case
@@ReachFilms Just sent you a special thanks hopefully you can find a place that sells coffee that cheaply. 🤣
OK not being a Mac Guy how do I know the Home Folder is Really on the External drive and Down loads will go to the External and not the Internal 256GB SSD?
Hi Geoff, I have an iMac which is running from an external drive (I also have another external with the Time Machine back up), just bought the new Mac Mini M4 and an external SSD with enclosure (Which I want to be my main drive). What are the steps that you would recommend in this case? Thank you in advance! Great video btw 👍🏻
Same process for M2 base Mac mini?
Thanks for the video. Very helpful. Once I have the mini set up with the external SSD, how do I bring overall my stuff from my MacBook Pro. I suspect for my user folder I can just copy it. But what about the stuff, like applications, that won't go on the SSD. Do I have to reinstall everything? thx
@@GamesfromtheFront you have to reinstall everything unfortunately
ok this M4 is my first Mac, and I have a new 4tb external ssd drive, can I use the 256 gb of the Mac just for OS and software and use the external 4tb for documents? The external always connected to the mac?
I just did this and I got an error message when restarting that says “you are unable to log in to the user account (name) at this time. “ what do I do I’m stuck here HELP!
@@Xoalcs what kind of drive are you using?
@ Samsung t7 2 tb
What can I do to get pass this ?
@@Xoalcs unfortunately it’s why in this video I only recommend using the owc drive. The Samsung drives are way too slow to be doing this, and the only people reporting issues are ones using the T7. I unfortunately don’t have a fix other than anyone reading this heed my warning as I say in the video. DO NOT use a T7 to do this, use Thunderbolt 4 drives minimum if you decide not to use the owc drive. But I really only recommend the owc drive because it won’t overheat
I tried this on 2 user accounts problem is now it will only sign in one Apple ID to both accounts
what about the programs that are already on the m4.. gargae band, books, imovie etc. iphotos -- how d u move them over and save to external drive as well..
delete them first, then once you move to the new drive reinstall from the App Store
@ReachFilms, thank you for this quick and to the point tip. Could you please explain what the process is like if I already have a Mac and want to use this method?
@@DearWokeChristian if you want to do this and already have a Mac you can either do it and leave everything on your drive, or start uninstalling apps and data so free up space before you do the change of home location
Can you use the same hard drive you used for a Mac m2 (booting from) for this method? Without erasing the drive and reformatting? Tried it multiple times but all I get is a loading screen after restarting 🥲
@@coinzyuk2472 I unfortunately don’t boot from an external drive so I don’t have that experience
Would it work if I did this method on my m2 then switched to my m4? Will it be compatible with both? Sorry for the questions, I’ve just bought the m4 but can’t load music projects with all the plugins intact 🥲 thank you for getting back to me
@ no I don’t think so you would need to set it up on both machines separately
Do you know what happens if for some reason the external drive is disconnected at boot, does this corrupt the filesystem or is not important?
System will boot but you won’t be able to login on to your account.
Tested this today.
@@daFojtekwhat do you after that I’m stuck in the error screen
@ i was reinstalling whole system through recovery mode with format of main drive otherwise will have the same error after reinstalling.
Great video! How about if I am moving from an iMac 2017 to a new Mac mini 1TB. And I have a new 2TB external SDD drive for my new Mac mini, but my computer information it’s in my old external hard drive that I connect using Time Machine. What my best way to do this, transferring what I have in my actual iMac 2017 to my Mac mini.
I have the same 2017 imac, and have the same issue. I have Superduper and Time Machine Backups ready. And I have thought about just copying data only to a second external drive, and transfer that to the external of the mac mini. But I see issues.
I'm still waiting till someone like you who tries a few things to report back on how your transfer went!
@ I will let you know!
Can someone help, I want to migrate from iMac to my new M4 mini but it’s not working as it says not enough space on my Mac mini. I want to migrate to ssd for storage but it only seems to want to migrate to mini storage. I’ve changed the home folder but still not working..help!
Well explained! TY Just in time!
will this also work for macbook air m4 or is there a problem because of the screen?
It would work, but for a laptop I would not recommend this method, too much movement at play
@@ReachFilms thanks for your input!...like you recommended in another video, i'll setting up a secondary user account that's not linked to the external ssd....so i can use it mobile with small storage and at home as a desktop
Can this be done on older Intel Based Macbook Pro (2014)? TIA!
@@MarceloHernandez1962 it has to have the newest operating system
@@ReachFilms macOS 14 also has the ability to change the $HOME for each user.
Does this method allow me to install daw to SSD, LIKE PRO TOOLS, FL STUDIO?
Does it allow me to install VSTI like PianoVerse, Addictive Drums 2, keyscape on the External drive like it would on the main drive?
Mixing Plugins such as Waves Audio?
I am a windows person thinking of coming to Mac but the memory upgrade is not friendly, so i really want to know if the external drive can become the C drive, this is what PC call main drive?
You can install any program, once you do this all installs will default to installing on the external drive without any more effort
@ReachFilms awesome thank you so much GOD BLESS YOU BRO
Thanks Jeff. By using this particular drive, would the read write speed be faster than the internal 512GB drive on a Mac Mini M4?
I haven’t tested the 512gb but from what I understand it is faster than the base model, it may be the same speed of the owc or slightly faster but in the ball park
@ I am going to try it out. I will wait for the drive to arrive before installing anything. Cheers Geoff.
Thanks for the video! Just to be clear, with this method, the apps I install will still be on my Mac mini right?
@@jojos8888 they would technically be on the external drive, that’s really the main point of this method
Also, what's the chance Apple would change his in a future software update?
We’ve been able to move the Home folder for many years, so chances are low.
Fantastic informative video. Quick question, do you need to use specialized Thunder Bolt 4 cables when making the physical connection from the Mac M4 to an external HD, or will a regular USB-C cable do the job? Thanks'
It all depends on the drive you use, if it’s a thunderbolt 4 drive then yes
@ thanks ✅
If I already completed the initial setup & my Os is around 18G,
Photos & Podcast about 6G.
If I want to make the External SSD the home folder, would I have to delete or manually move Photos & Podcasts over to the External?
I did this and now can’t delete applications off the internal storage.
As I warn in the video, do that before you start the process
Why not make everything including macOS/UNIX boot and run from the external Thunderbolt 4/5 drive?
If there is boot up issue with the drive it makes it much harder to access the computer and change things
Apple Intelligence will only work if the internal drive is the startup drive.
@@isabellavision That "Sucks Big Time!". See no technology requirement for this other than Apple, wanting to sell more SSD storage, and make more money. "Show me the money!!!!".
If use external as your main can you still use apple intelligence?
No !
The Synology CMS is still much superior to UniFi's limited multi site capabilities. It also supports encryption, granular user permissions, and more sophisticated ONVIF support. The downside is licensing.
For sure but you have to understand the audience for this method, they aren’t looking to get that kind of unit
@ReachFilms Strange, I was actually commenting on the wrong video. Very odd. The comment you see above wasn't intended for here. Sorry.
Question let’s say I get a new Mac mini M4, and I load it up and I sign out to my iCloud ..won’t my iCloud files start to propagate on the new drive automatically or is there something I should do before my iCloud file start to propagate on the new device?
When you do this and restart your computer, it makes you re-sign in to iCloud and then at that point things would start to repopulate
@@ReachFilms I don’t believe iCloud syncs to your computer. You can choose whatever folder you want to download to your computer, in case you need to work on something and have no internet connection. IN Sequoia there is a right click option to download now or keep downloaded…. This last option would sync back and forth…from cloud to computer…
I have an M2 mac mini which is great and runs well,I have no need to upgrade as I don't do much on my mac .I have 2 windows server machines for my storage with 16tb between them.however why buy a mac mini and then worry over the base model storage..waste of money and time ..just buy a macmini M4 pro with 32gb and 1tb storage and forget your worries that's what apple expect its users to do if your purpose is more than internet browsing or simple document processing...not creative stuff or heavy duty...
@@georgetechtips8804 I'm pretty sure the entire purpose of this is just about saving money and not paying the "Apple Tax" of $400-$800 for a measly 1-2 TB of Storage. This gets you great value out of a $600 computer. Otherwise, if you upgrade your Mac Mini to 32 GB Memory (RAM) and 2 TB of storage, it's now a $2000 computer and not such a great value anymore.
Hmm.., what could potentially go wrong with an external SSD setup for your $home, that is being actively accessed 24x7 to run your applications or retrieve your data?
1. Accidental pullout of the external SSD
2. Crashing of the external SSD including H/W faults
3. Power failure to the external SSD - power outages and surges
4. Overheating - High temperatures can cause the SSD's chips and controllers to fail
5. Corrupted data and bad blocks
6. Buggy applications freezing up and crashing, causing disk corruptions
If I was seeking adventure, i'd probably use Velcro to attach ext. SSD to mac mini and also connect it's power supply through surge protector. Further for long term archival (via time machine backups) i'd probably use a different type of secondary storage.
This only applies to the user's home directory. Applications that rely on the Library/Application Support folder (such as Steinberg, Logic, and GarageBand) will still use your internal drive. My Library takes up 835GB, and my Users folder is 513GB. To store this externally, I had to install the OS on an external drive. While this solution "works," it disables OS update functionality and breaks certain "Apple-protected" services.
Thanks for this great video, I have installed my apps on Mac Mini internal storage. I would uninstall them, what do i need to do next to ensure that they download to the external storage. You mentioned that you had to go through a process of changing the disk drive links?
Great Video, thanks. Is a time maschine backup on another external harddrive possible with this method?
Yes
@ thanks
My computer I built in 2006 had a 250gb hdd. Now we are 18 years later and apple’s desktop equivalent has how much storage as standard - the same!
18 years and no progress!!! Yes, it’s much faster but to have the same storage as standard as my tower did almost 20 years ago is truly mad.
If I saved previously downloaded applications on Time Machine, they will not be synchronized to an external disk. Or will they?
So if I’m booting my new Mac Mini for the first time, what exactly do I need to do? This video isn’t very clear on that.
@@Tolbiny if your booting your Mac for the first time just jump in and do the steps I show in the video.
Keep the OS on main drive and put other stuff like projects on the external. What if I want to take the computer on the go, now I need to lug an external SSD just to boot it.
Please check pinned comment
If i download pro tools, softube, native instruments etc should i move to application folders on external drive when downl9aded ? Cheers
if we set home directory to ext ssd, it will just continue our future install app to ext ssd right? the app in internal ssd will work as they should... please elaborate..
If you choose the external you will no longer see any of the apps on the internal even if they are still installed on there. If you switch back to the internal drive though and everything is still installed they will all show up again
@@ReachFilms ah i see.. thanks for explain
I just purchased the M4 pro mac mini, then came across the videos about moving the home folder over to SSD. I thank you for your assessment on which external drive to use but i have a few questions. Is it the fact that the "enclosure" is Thunderbolt 4 that gives the drive its speed or is it the NVMe chip that has to be that fast? What would be recommended chips that have a 2 or more TB storage? Do you get the products from amazon or OWC website? Now the kicker, under the guide rom apple support, I already did a data transfer from my mbp to the m4-pro internal hard drive. This procedure transferred the whole identity of the laptop into the M4- now the hard drive has the name of my laptop and all its glory. Obviously one would like to be able to determine which computer i am using by looking at the name, (and i know that if the laptop is not connected to my monitor, its the desktop im seeing, but I don't want them to have the same name) so what do you do to avoid this when transferring data? Would you also recommend to just reformat and reinstall the OS on the M4-Pro back to default (how?) , then set up the new larger external ssd drive, then transfer data? So much info its confusing. TIA for instructions
hello all, anyone know if this drive will be updated soon to TB5, i know they have that black one out but im wondering for this style. Thanks
Thank you for the video; it's very helpful. When using the Samsung External SSD as my main drive, is it necessary to connect it to the usb c thunderbolt port on the back of the Mac Mini or can I connect it to a dongle since my other ports on the back of the mini are already used to connect other gear, e.g., mic, camera, etc.?
I wouldn’t recommend using the Samsung for the method! Seeing tons of issues as it’s not a super fast drive for this type of operation
@@ReachFilms - thank you. For this method, which would you recommend?
@ I would really only recommend the owc drive i show in this video as it has speeds. faster than the internal drive and close to more expensive internal drives
@ - thank you!
@@yolandabI suggest you learn what thunderbolt means. Really a machine with more storage space is for you, because when it goes down/… 😮… 🙏🙏🙏🙏
I need help……… I make the restart and now I cannot login ……
I read somewhere that the external drive must be non ejectable to use it for a home file. Not true?
You can use any external drive, ejectable or not, as long as it meets the performance requirements.
Do the new Mac M4 Pro allow Samsung T9 to be used to it's full potential with Thunderbolt 5 ports? Or is it USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ready? Thank you :)
unfortunately not Apple didn't but in the right hardware to utilize it properly
Geoff, correct me if I am wrong, What you propose is that we set the external drive as the main drive, and THEN install all apps?
yep exactly!
@@ReachFilms Thank you!
Can wei still using "Apple intelligence" if we switch our main drive to external SSD? Back to M2 age, I was installed the OS in the external drive. Cook said you can't use Apple AI if you do that.
Don’t install the os on an external drive. That’s booting from a drive which is different from this. the method I describe is just changing the home location
I am surprised that you cannot choose what drive you will install a new app to whenever you do an install. I have never owned a Mac but when I install a Steam game on my PC, I am offered a choice of drives every time I do an install. I have a terabyte of Steam games on my 2 Tb PC SSD and 1.5 terabytes of Steam games on my 2 Tb PC hard disk.
How can you put your applications on an external drive as well? How would they get updated? Do you have to re-copy them?